



Cop}Tlght]»i° 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



ECLECTIC ENGLISH CLASSICS 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

AND 

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 



By CHARLES DICKENS 



EDITED BY 

OLIN DANTZLER WANNAMAKER, M. A. 

HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH 

SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY 

DALLAS, TEXAS 



^ AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

NEW YORK CINCINNATI CHICAGO 






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Copyright, 1915, by 
American Book Company 



Dickens's Christmas carol and cricket 
on the hearth 

W. P. I 




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CHARLES DICKENS 



From Wednesday to Friday, the 4th to the 6th of October, 
V-1843, Dickens was at Manchester, where "he spoke mainly 
;f on a matter always nearest his heart, the education of the 
~. very poor." He described to his audience the terrible sights 
3 he had lately taken his friend, the poet Longfellow, to see in 
some of the worst parts of London: '* thousands of immortal 
creatures condemned without alternative to tread, not what 
our great poet calls the primrose path to the everlasting bon- 
fire, but one of jagged flints and stones laid down by brutal 
ignorance." With his heart thus occupied by thoughts of 
"man's inhumanity to man," the conception arose within 
him which later took form in the famous Christmas Caroly 
the first of a series of stories written in succeeding years 
at Christmas time. In the midst of strenuous labor at the 
composition of Martin Chuzzlewit, he completed the Carol 
before the end of November. 

Published but a few days before Christmas, the little book 
began with brilliant promise, the first edition of 6,000 copies 
being sold the first day, and 2,000 additional copies by the 
3rd of January. From that day to this, the Christmas Carol 
has always been one of the most widely read stories in the 
English tongue, and probably one of the most effectual for 
good to humanity. Together with the succeeding Christmas 
stories, it has aided greatly in giving the present character 
to Christmas among all English-speaking people. "Every 
barefoot boy and girl in the streets of England and America 
to-day fares a little better, gets fewer cuffs and more pudding, 
because Charles Dickens wrote." 

The second story in this little volume was the third in the 
Christmas series. It appeared before Christmas in 1845, 
and doubled in sales at the outset both The Chimes of the 
Christmas before and also the Carol. 



6 CHARLES DICKENS 

The heart of Dickens was in these short tales perhaps 
even more intensely than in his greatest novels. They drew 
powerfully upon his sympathy, his affection, and his imagina- 
tion. His deep emotion while planning The Chimes in the 
city of Venice, a city which had impressed him as "the 
wonder '^ and "the new sensation" of the world, he thus 
described to his friend Forster: "Ah! when I saw those 
places, how I thought that to leave one's hand upon the time, 
lastingly upon the time, with one tender touch for the mass 
of the toiling people that nothing could obliterate, would 
be to lift oneself above the dust of the Doges in their graves 
and stand upon a giant's staircase that Sampson couldn't 
overthrow." As to the Carol, Forster tells us "with what 
a strange mastery it seized him for itself, how he wept over 
it, and laughed, and wept again, and excited himself to an 
extraordinary degree, and how he walked thinking of it 
fifteen and twenty miles about the black streets of London 
many and many a night after all sober folks had gone to 
bed." 

It was with such intensity of enthusiasm that Dickens did 
all his writing, and his biographer tells us that this same 
ambition to bless the poor was present in varying forms in 
all his life. In every novel he wrote, sympathy for human 
beings is everywhere present, predominating over even his 
amazing sense of humor. The very first long story, Pickwick 
Papers, beginning as a mere farce, becomes toward the end 
the story of a character worthy to stand in the same gallery 
with Sir Roger de Coverley. Every novel was a powerful 
blow — indeed, many powerful blows — against some hated 
evil and in behalf of some cherished good for the race. Only 
the amazing imagination of Dickens, teeming with incidents 
and persons, and his never-failing humor save his writings 
from becoming mere pamphlets in behalf of social better- 
ment — and personal betterment as well. Fortunately, these 
elements of his genius do, indeed, completely preserve the 
stories and novels from this degeneration, so that they live 
to-day and are infinitely more effectual for good because 
infinitely superior to mere pamphlets. 

Given the sympathetic nature of Dickens, it was inevit- 
able that he should become the great champion of the poor. 



CHARLES DICKENS J 

Born in 1812, he grew to manhood during a period of much 
hardship among the working classes and of violent efforts 
on their part to right their wrongs. He was but 22 years 
old when the new poor laws were enacted, whose harsh en- 
forcement aroused his stern and vigorous denunciation. 
But it was his own personal boyhood experiences which 
stamped indelibly upon his mind the ills of the poor. Far 
more ambitious for education, and far more acutely sensi- 
tive, than the ordinary boy, he underwent from the age of 
ten to twelve years a bitter experience of the hardship and 
shame of abject poverty. For these two years he pasted 
labels on blacking bottles in a London factory, and slept in 
a lonely and wretched little room away from all his family. 
Cut off from the hope of an education and condemned to the 
barren companionship of the most ignorant boys, Dickens 
suffered a mental martyrdom until released from this servi- 
tude. Many experiences of this period are incorporated in 
David Copperfield. 

John Dickens, the father of the novelist, was a clerk in 
the navy pay office, and happened to be stationed at Ports- 
mouth when his second child, Charles, was born, February 7. 
Later he moved to London. A kind-hearted and generous 
man, in whose career there met together, unfortunately, 
"ease of temper '^ and *'straitness of means," he found the 
burdens of an increasing family too great for his powers to 
cope with, and was finally lodged in the Marshalsea for debt. 
Here he remained till a legacy left by a relative enabled him 
to obtain his release. It was during this time that Charles 
worked in the blacking factory and lived a lonely life. His 
wages barely enabled him to live at all, and he often went 
hungry. But it was at this time also that he began his 
wonderfully accurate and wide observation among the Lon- 
don poor. Scenes indelibly imprinted on the memory of the 
lonely boy were transferred later to many a page of his 
thrilling stories. 

Released from this hard life in 1824 through a quarrel 
between his employer and his father, the boy was put to 
school at Wellington House Academy, where he remained 
two years, when he entered a lawyer's office at the age of 
fourteen as a clerk. Following the example of his father, who 



8 CHARLES DICKENS 

had become a reporter and was now fairly prosperous, 
Dickens took up the study of shorthand, and mastered its 
difficulties with remarkable success. Giving over the ambi- 
tion to become a lawyer, he served as reporter on the staffs 
of several London papers in succession, winning a reputation 
for wonderful speed and accuracy. This career led him nat- 
urally into the life work for which he had been steadily, 
though only partly consciously, preparing himself. 

His first literary venture was a sketch entitled A Din- 
ner at Poplar Walk, afterwards called Mr. Minns and His 
Cousin, published in The Old Monthly Magazine for De- 
cember, 1833. He continued to write similar sketches for 
that magazine till February, 1835, beginning in August, 
1834, the use of the pen name Boz. During 1835 he pub- 
lished similar contributions in The Evening Chronicle, and 
in 1836 appeared his first volume of collected sketches en- 
titled Sketches by Boz, 

These brilliant street sketches by the young reporter led 
to his being invited to write the text for a series of 
humorous pictures to be drawn by the famous artist Sey- 
mour, and the genius of Dickens combined with the sudden 
death of Seymour brought about the subordination of the 
illustrations to the text, and gave to the world one of its 
most famous books. The Posthumous Papers of the Pick- 
wick Club: edited by Boz, With this production, Dickens 
sprang at once to the very front rank of English novelists. 
Beginning as a farce. The Pickwick Papers grew more serious 
and meaningful toward the end, and set the standard for all 
the great novels with which Dickens followed this initial tri- 
umph. It showed the characteristics of teeming imagina- 
tion, rollicking humor, tender and universal sympathy, and 
invincible optimism which constitute the wealth of Dickens's 
contribution to our literature. The same characteristics 
mark all the novels, only modified and controlled with in- 
creasing experience and maturity, and blended later with 
greater mastery of plot construction. 

The remainder of the life of Dickens cannot be sketched 
here in detail. The year of the publication of Pickwick he 
married Miss Hogarth, daughter of an editor of The Evening 
Chronicle. He later visited America twice, and spent much 



CHARLES DICKENS 9 

time in Europe, but he was never entirely at home save in 
England, and could do his best work with the streets of 
London about him and enticing him to roam through them as 
he did when a lonely boy. Throughout his career he remained 
the most popular writer in the English language. When he 
died, in 1870, before the news of his death had even reached 
London, "it had been flashed across Europe; was known in 
the distant continents of India, Australia, and America; and 
not in English-speaking communities only, but in every 
country of the civilized earth, had awakened grief and sym- 
pathy." 

Suggestions for Study 

Every teacher of literature, especially a teacher of high- 
school pupils, should hold in mind for his class a certain 
Biblical injunction modified to run thus: Enjoyment is the 
principal things therefore get enjoyment; and, with all your 
getting, get enthusiasm! 

Let no notes, and no quizzes, and no outside tasks so 
obtrude themselves as to hinder this prime purpose. The 
best tilstructor is by no means the best teacher. Success in 
the teaching of these two stories from Dickens can best be 
tested by one question: How many members of the class 
were enthusiastic about A Christmas Carol and The Cricket 
on the Hearth? 

Naturally this enjoyment, together with the added stimu- 
lus of suggestion, should lead pupils to read other stories by 
the same author. It might prove a good plan to have several 
pupils read and report to the class on the other Christmas 
stories. Among the novels, David Copperfield, Nicholas 
Nickleby, and J Tale of Two Cities are sure to prove interest- 
ing at this stage in the pupils' lives. If the teacher can really 
introduce his class to a lifelong familiarity with Dickens, he 
will have done them a greater service of friendship than any 
possible amount of instruction and imparting of information. 
With the magazines of the day filled with concentrated ac- 
tion and conversation in the form of short stories, boys and 
girls of the present generation need really to be introduced to 
Dickens and to be encouraged over the first hundred pages. 



lO CHARLES DICKENS 

Yet, with good judgment and tact, the teacher can in- 
sinuate into the recitations enough critical study to prepare 
the class for more advanced courses in fiction. Without 
depriving the young pupil of his birthright of nai've enjoy- 
ment, a small proportion of critical suggestion may be 
embedded in the discussion of plot and characters. This, 
however, is the third objective only, for next after the enjoy- 
ment of the stories and the reading of others by the same 
author should come the resort to the library for information 
about the author himself. The following books, among 
a host of others, are good: 
Forster's Life of Charles Dickens. Charles Scribner's Sons. 

The authorized biography, long and full, but extremely 

well written and entertaining. Excellent indexes. 
Charles Dickens, by George Gissing. Dodd, Mead & Co. 

A critical, but also appreciative, study of Dickens as a 

novelist. 
Charles Dickens: A Critical Study, by G. K. Chesterton. 

Dodd, Mead & Co. An enthusiastic appreciation of 

the writer. 
Masters of the English Novel, by Richard Burton. Henry 

Holt & Co. Contains an enthusiastic chapter on Dickens. 
The Development of the English Novel, by Wilbur L. Cross. 

The Macmillan Company. ■ 

If the pupils are sufficiently mature to consider these 

stories as literary productions, they may be guided into 

critical appreciation by some such questions as the following. 

Correct answers are not nearly so much to be desired as is 

class discussion. 

What purpose had Dickens in writing these stories to be 
published at Christmas time.? (See titles of stories in 
Forster's index.) Do you think he succeeded in his 
purpose? Was he specially suited by temperament to 
write with such a purpose.? 

Are the stories to be studied with strict regard to the proba- 
bility of events, or are they to be read as one reads 
fairy tales.? Can you cite events in the stories to prove 
your point? 

Are the characters true to life? If you think some char- 



CHARLES DICKENS II 

acters behave in improbable ways, refer to the inci- 
dents and argue for your opinion. Are the tales to 
be criticized strictly in this respect, or, again, must we 
grant the waiter the license of the fairy story? Does 
Dickens picture things just as they were or, rather, as he 
would like to have thern become? A writer who pic- 
tures the world as he would like to have it become is 
sometimes called an idealist. 

Whether the characters are strictly true to life or not, are 
they all vivid? That is, do you know clearly just what 
sort of person Scrooge, for instance, is while you read 
the story? Which seems to you the more vital quality 
in a story: that the characters be strictly true to life 
(but perhaps not clear and vivid) or that they be clear 
and vivid (though perhaps not strictly true) ? 

If the characters are vividly clear to your imagination, try 
to discover how Dickens made them so. 

In which story is the action more constantly rapid and ex- 
citing? Which seems the more perfect in the natural- 
ness of the incidents and the vividness of the persons? 
Can you discover any serious flaw in either story? 

To appreciate thoroughly the motive that led Dickens to 
write these stories and most of his novels, you should 
learn something about the conditions among the poor 
in his day. Glance at the marginal index in Green's 
Short History of the English People^ for the chapters deal- 
ing with this period, and read those paragraphs which 
discuss social and economic conditions during the first 
half of the nineteenth century. 



A CHRISTMAS CAROL 



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A CHRISTMAS CAROL'^ 

IN PROSE 

BEING A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS 



STAVE ONE** 
marley's ghost 



Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt what- 
ever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the 
clergyman, the clerk,^ the undertaker, and the chief mourner. 
Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 
'Change^ for anything he chose to put his hand to. 

Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. 

Mind ! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowl- 
edge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I 
might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin nail as 
the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the 
wisdom ^ of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed 
hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for. You 
will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley 
was as dead as a doornail. 

Scrooge knew he was dead .? Of course he did. How could 
it be otherwise .f^ Scrooge and he were partners for I don't 
know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor,'^ his 
sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, 
his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not 
so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an 
excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, 
and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain. 

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the 

IS 



1 6 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was 
dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing 
wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we 
were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's father died be- 
fore the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable 
in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his 
own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged 
gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot, — 
say Saint Paul's " churchyard for instance, — literally to 
astonish his son's weak mind. 

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it 
stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge 
and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. 
Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, 
and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It 
was all the same to him. 

Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, 
Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutch- 
ing, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which 
no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self- 
contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him 
froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his 
cheek, stiff^ened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; 
and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime 
was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. 
He carried his own low temperature always about with him; 
he iced his office in the dog days; and didn't thaw it one 
degree at Christmas. 

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. 
No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No 
wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more 
intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. 
Foul weather didn't know where to have him.** The heaviest 
rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the ad- 
vantage-over him in only one respect. They often "came 
down" ^ handsomely, and Scrooge never did. 



MARLETS GHOST 1 7 

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with glad- 
some looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will 
you come to see me?'' No beggars implored him to bestow 
a trifle, no children asked hirn what it was o'clock, no man or 
woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and 
such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared 
to know him; " and, when they saw him coming on, would tug 
their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would 
wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better 
than an evil eye, dark master!" 

But what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. 
To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all 
human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing 
ones call "nuts" to Scrooge. 

Once upon a time, — of all the good days in the year, on 
Christmas Eve, — old Scrooge sat busy in his countinghouse. 
It was cold, bleak, biting weather, foggy withal, and he could 
hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down, 
beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their 
feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city 
clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark al- 
ready, — it had not been light all day, — and candles were 
flaring in the windows of the neighboring offices, like ruddy 
smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring 
in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that, 
although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite 
were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping 
down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that 
Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale. 

The door of Scrooge's countinghouse was open, that he 
might keep his eye upon his clerk, who, in a dismal little cell 
beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a 
very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller 
that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't replenish it, 
for Scrooge kept the coal box in his own room; and so surely 
as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted 



1 8 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the 
clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself 
at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong 
imagination, he failed. 

"A Merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheer- 
ful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came 
upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had 
of his approach. 

"Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!" 

He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog 
and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; 
his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his 
breath smoked again. 

"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. 
"You don't mean that, I am sure." 

"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right 
have you to be merry.? What reason have you to be merry.? 
You're poor enough." 

"Come, then," returned the nephew gayly. "What right 
have you to be dismal.? What reason have you to be morose.? 
You're rich enough." 

Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the 
moment, said "Bah!" again; and followed it up with "Hum- 
bug!" 

"Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew. 

"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I live in 
such a world of fools as this.? Merry Christmas! Out upon 
Merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a 
time for paying bills without money; a time for finding your- 
self a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing 
your books, and having every item in 'em through a round 
dozen of months presented dead against you.? If I could 
work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who 
goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be 
boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of 
holly through his heart. He should!" 



MARLETS GHOST 19 

"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew. 

"Nephew!" returned the uncle sternly, "keep Christmas 
in your own way, and let me keep it in mine." 

"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you don't 
keep it." 

"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much good 
may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!" 

"There are many things from which I might have derived 
good by which I have not profited, I dare say," returned the 
nephew, "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have 
always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, — 
apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, 
if anything belonging to it can be apart from that, — as a 
good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the 
only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when 
men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up 
hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they 
really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another 
race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, 
uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my 
pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me 
good; and I say, God bless it!" 

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming 
immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, 
and extinguished the last frail spark forever. 

"Let me hear another sound from yoi^," said Scrooge, 

"and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation! 

You're quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, turning to 

his nephew. "I wonder you don't go into Parliament." 

. " Don't be angry, uncle. Come ! Dine with us to-morrow." 

Scrooge said that he would see him Yes, indeed, he 

did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said 
that he would see him in that extremity first. 

"But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?'* 

"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge. 

"Because I fell in love." 



20 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

" Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if that were 
the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry 
Christmas. **Good afternoon!" 

"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that 
happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now.?" 

"Good afternoon," said Scrooge. 

"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why can- 
not we be friends.?" 

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge. 

"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. 
We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a 
party. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, 
and ril keep my Christmas humor to the last. So A Merry 
Christmas, uncle!" 

"Good afternoon," said Scrooge. 

"And A Happy New Year!" 

"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge. 

His nephew left the room without an angry word, not- 
withstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the 
greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, 
was warmer than Scrooge, for he returned them cordially. 

"There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge, who over- 
heard him; "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a 
wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. I'll 
retire to Bedlam." ** 

This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two 
other people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to 
behold, and now stood, with their hats off, in Scrooge's 
oflSce. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed 
to him. 

"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the gentle- 
men, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure of addressing 
Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?" 

"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years," Scrooge 
replied. "He died seven years ago, this very night." 

"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by 



MARLETS GHOST 21 

his surviving partner/' said the gentleman, presenting his 
credentials. 

It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. 
At the ominous word *' liberality/' Scrooge frowned, and 
shook his head, and handed the credentials back. 

"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said 
the gentleman, taking up a pen, *'it is more than usually 
desirable that we should make some slight provision for the 
poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. 
Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hun- 
dreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir." 

**Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge. 

" Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the 
pen again. 

**And the Union workhouses?"" demanded Scrooge. 
"Are they still in operation?" 

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I 
could say they were not." 

"The treadmill and the Poor Law'* are in full vigor, 
then?" said Scrooge. 

"Both very busy, sir." 

"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that some- 
thing had occurred to stop them in their useful course/* 
said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to hear it." 

"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Chris- 
tian cheer of mind or body to the multitude," returned the 
gentleman, "a few of us are endeavoring to raise a fund to 
buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. 
We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when 
Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I 
put you down for?" 

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied. 

"You wish to be anonymous?" 

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask 
me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't 
make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make 



22 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I 
have mentioned, -r- they cost enough; and those who are 
badly off must go there." 

^'Many can't go there; and many would rather die.'' 

*' If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better 
do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides, — excuse 
me, — I don't know that." 

''But you might know it," observed the gentleman. 

"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's enough 
for a man to understand his own business, and not to inter- 
fere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. 
Good afternoon, gentlemen!" 

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their 
point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labors 
with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious 
temper than was usual with him. 

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so that people 
ran about with flaring links," proffering their services to go 
before horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. 
The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always 
peeping slyly down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the 
wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in 
the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its 
teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold 
became intense. In the main street, at the corner of the 
court, some laborers were repairing the gas pipes, and had 
lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged 
men and boys were gathered, warming their hands and 
winking their eyes before the blaze, in rapture. The water- 
plug being left in solitude, its overflowings suddenly con- 
gealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of 
the shops, where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the 
lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they 
passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid 
joke; a glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible 
to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had 



MARLETS GHOST 23 

anything to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the 
mighty Mansion House,'^ gave orders to his fifty cooks and 
butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household 
should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined 
five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and 
bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up to-morrow's pudding 
in his garret, while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to 
buy the beef. 

Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. 
If the good Saint Dunstan ^ had but nipped the Evil Spirit's 
nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using 
his familiar weapons, then, indeed, he would have roared to 
lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed 
and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by 
dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with 
a Christmas carol; " but at the first sound of 

" God bless you,^ merry gentlemen, 
May nothing you dismay." 

Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the 
singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even 
more congenial frost. 

At length the hour of shutting up the countinghouse 
arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, 
and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk in the 
tank, who instantly snuflFed his candle out, and put on his 
hat. 

"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said Scrooge. 

"If quite convenient, sir." 

"It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not fair. 
If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill- 
used, I'll be bound?" 

The clerk smiled faintly. 

"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used 
when I pay a day's wages for no work." 

The clerk observed that it was only once a year. 



24 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

*'A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty- 
fifth of December!'' said Scrooge, buttoning his greatcoat 
to the chin. *^But I suppose you must have the whole day. 
Be here all the earlier next morning." 

The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked 
' out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and 
the clerk, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling 
below his waist (for he boasted no greatcoat), went down 
a slide on Cornhill,^ at the end of a lane of boys, twenty 
times, in honor of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran 
home to Camden Town,'* as hard as he could pelt, to play at 
blindman's buff. 

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy 
tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the 
rest of the evening with his banker's book, went home to bed. 
He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased 
partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering 
pile of building up a yard, where it had so little business 
to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run 
there when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek 
with other houses, and have forgotten the way out again. 
It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived 
in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices. 
The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every 
stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost 
so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it 
seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful med- 
itation on the threshold. 

Now it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular 
about the knocker on the door, except that it was very large. 
It is also a fact that Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, 
during his whole residence in that place; also that Scrooge 
had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in 
the city of London, even including — which is a bold word — 
the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne in 
mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, 



MARLETS GHOST 25 

since his last mention of his seven-years-dead partner that 
afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, 
how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of 
the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any 
intermediate process of change, — not a knocker, but Mar- 
ley's face. 

Marley's face. It was not an impenetrable shadow, as the 
other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about 
it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or 
ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with 
ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The 
hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air; and 
though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motion- 
less. That, and its livid color, made it horrible; but its horror 
seemed to be in spite of the face, and beyond its control, 
rather than a part of its own expression. 

As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon it was a 
knocker again. 

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not 
conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a 
stranger from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his 
hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, 
walked in, and lighted his candle. 

He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut 
the door; and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he 
half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley's pig- 
tail " sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on 
the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held 
the knocker on, so he said, *'Pooh, pooh!" and closed it with 
a bang. 

The sound resounded through the house like thunder. 
Every room above, and every cask in the wine merchant's 
cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of 
its own. Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by echoes. 
He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the 
stairs, slowly, too, trimming his candle as he went. 



26 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six ^ up 
a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of 
Parliament: but I mean to say you might have got a hearse 
up that staircase, and taken it broadwise, with the splinter- 
bar towards the wall, and the door towards the balustrades, 
and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and 
room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge 
thought he saw a locomotive hearse ^ going on before him in 
the gloom. Haifa dozen gas lamps out of the street wouldn't 
have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it 
was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip. 

Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness 
is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before he shut his heavy 
door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. 
He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do 
that. 

Sitting room, bedroom, lumber room. All as they should 
be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small 
fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little sauce- 
pan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob. 
Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his 
dressing gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude 
against the wall. Lumber room as usual. Old fireguard, 
old shoes, two fish baskets, washing stand on three legs, and 
a poker. 

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; 
double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus 
secured against surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his 
dressing gown and slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down 
before the fire to take his gruel. 

It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter 
night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, 
before he could extract the least sensation of warmth from 
such a handful of fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built 
by some Dutch merchant " long ago, and paved all round 
with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures. 



MARLETS GHOST 27 

There were Cains and Abels, Pharaohs' daughters, Queens 
of Sheba, angelic messengers descending through the air on 
clouds like feather beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles 
putting off to sea in butter boats, hundreds of figures to 
attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years 
dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod," and swallowed 
up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first, 
with power to shape some picture on its surface from the dis- 
jointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a 
copy of Old Marley's head on every one. 

'* Humbug!" said Scrooge; and walked across the room. 

After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his 
head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a 
bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated, 
for some purpose now forgotten, with a chamber in the high- 
est story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and 
with a strange, inexplicable dread, that, as he looked, he 
saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset 
that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, 
and so did every bell in the house. 

This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it 
seemed an hour. The bells ceased, as they had begun, to- 
gether. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down 
below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over 
the casks in the wine merchant's cellar. Scrooge then re- 
membered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were 
described as dragging chains. 

The cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then 
he heard the noise, much louder, on the floors below; then 
coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door. 

''It's humbug still!" said Scrooge. ''I won't believe it!" 

His color changed, though, when, without a pause, it came 
on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before 
his eyes. Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, 
as though it cried, **I know him! Marley's ghost!" and fell 
again. 



28 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

The same face, the very same. Marley, in his pigtail, 
usual waistcoat, tights, and boots; the tassels on the latter 
bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair 
upon his head. The chain he drew was clasped about his 
middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and 
it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash boxes, 
keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in 
steel. His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing 
him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two 
buttons on his coat behind. 

Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels,'* 
but he had never believed it until now. 

No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the 
phantom through and through, and saw it standing before 
him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold 
eyes, and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief 
bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not 
observed before, he was still incredulous, and fought against 
his senses. 

*'How now!^' said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. 
''What do you want with me.^" 

"Much!" — Marley's voice, no doubt about it. 

"Who are you?" 

"Ask me who I was'' 

"Who were you, then?" said Scrooge, raising his voice. 
"You're particular, for a shade." He was going to say, "/o 
a shade," but substituted this, as more appropriate. 

"In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley." 

"Can you — can you sit down?" asked Scrooge, looking 
doubtfully at him. 

"I can." 

"Doit, then." 

Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know 
whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a con- 
dition to take a chair; and felt that in the event of its being 
impossible, it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing 



MARLETS GHOST 29 

explanation. But the Ghost sat down on the opposite side 
of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it. 

''You don't believe in me/' observed the Ghost. 

"I don't," said Scrooge. 

"What evidence would you have of my reality beyond 
that of your own senses?" 

"I don't know," said Scrooge. 

*'Why do you doubt your senses?" 

"Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them. A 
slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may 
be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of 
cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more 
of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!" 

Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor 
did he feel, in his heart, by any means waggish then. The 
truth is, that he tried to be smart, as a means of distracting 
his own attention, and keeping down his terror, for the spec- 
ter's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones. 

To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence for a 
moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. 
There was something very awful, too, in the specter's being 
provided with an infernal atmosphere of his own. Scrooge 
could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case; for 
though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, his hair, and 
skirts, and tassels were still agitated as by the hot vapor 
from an oven. 

"You see this toothpick?" said Scrooge, returning quickly 
to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, 
though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony 
gaze from himself. 

"I do," replied the Ghost. 

"You are not looking at it," said Scrooge. 

"But I see it," said the Ghost, "notwithstanding." 

"Well!" returned Scrooge, "I have but to swallow this, 
and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of 
goblins, all my own creation. Humbug, I tell you; humbug!" 



30 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook his chain 
with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on 
tight to his chair, to save himself from falling in a swoon. 
But how much greater was his horror when, the phantom 
taking off the bandage round his head, as if it were too 
warm to wear indoors, his lower jaw dropped down upon his 
breast! 

Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before 
his face. 

"Mercy!" he said. '* Dreadful apparition, why do you 
trouble me?" 

*'Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, 'Mo you 
believe in me or not.f^" 

"I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits walk 
the earth, and why do they come to me?" 

"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned, "that 
the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow 
men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not 
forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is 
doomed to wander through the world, — oh, woe is me! — 
and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on 
earth, and turned to happiness!" 

Again the specter raised a cry, and shook his chain and 
wrung his shadowy hands. 

"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell me 
why?" 

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I 
made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my 
own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pat- 
tern strange to you?^^ 

Scrooge trembled more and more. 

"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the weight 
and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full 
as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You 
have labored on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!" 

Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation 



MARLErS GHOST 3 1 

of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms 
of iron cable; but he could see nothing. 

"Jacob!" he said imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley, tell 
me more! Speak comfort to me, Jacob!" 

"I have none to give," the Ghost replied. "It comes from 
other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other 
ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor can I tell you what I 
would. A very little more is all permitted to me. I cannot 
rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit 
never walked beyond our countinghouse, — mark me! — in 
life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our 
money-changing hole; and weary journeys He before me!" 

It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thought- 
ful, to put his hands in his breeches' pockets. Pondering on 
what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting 
up his eyes, or getting oflF his knees. 

"You must have been very slow about it, Jacob," Scrooge 
observed in a businesslike manner, though with humility 
and deference. 

"Slow!" the Ghost repeated. 

"Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. "And traveling all 
the time?" 

"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no peace. 
Incessant torture of remorse." 

"You travel fast?" said Scrooge. 

"On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost. 

"You might have got over a great quantity of ground in 
seven years," said Scrooge. 

The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked 
his chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that 
the Ward ^ would have been justified in indicting him for a 
nuisance. 

"Oh! captive, bound and double-ironed," cried the phan- 
tom, "not to know that ages of incessant labor, by immortal 
creatures, for this earth, must pass into eternity before the 
good of which it is susceptible is all developed! Not to know 



32 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

that any Christian spirit working kindly in its Httle sphere, 
whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its 
vast means of usefulness! Not to know that no space of 
regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused! 
Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!" 

''But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," 
faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself. 

''Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing his hands again. 
"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my 
business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, 
all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop 
of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" 

He held up his chain at arm's length, as if that were the 
cause of all his unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon 
the ground again. 

"At this time of the rolling year," the specter said, "I 
suflFer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow beings 
with my eyes turned down, and never raise them to that 
blessed Star which led the Wise Men '^ to a poor abode? 
Were there no poor homes to which its light would have con- 
ducted me?^^ 

Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the specter 
going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly. 

"Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly 
gone." 

"I will," said Scrooge. "But don't be hard upon me! 
Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!" 

"How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you 
can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible beside you many 
and many a day." 

It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped 
the perspiration from his brow. 

"That is no light part of my penance," pursued the Ghost. 
"I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance 
and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my 
procuring, Ebenezer." 



MARLETS GHOST 33 

"You were always a good friend to me/' said Scrooge. 
"Thankee!" 

"You will be haunted/' resumed the Ghost, "by three 
Spirits/' 

Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's' 
had done. 

"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob .^" 
he demanded, in a faltering voice. 

"It is." 

"I — I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge. 

"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot hope 
to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow, when 
the bell tolls one." 

"Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?" 
hinted Scrooge. 

"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. 
The third, upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve 
has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look 
that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed 
between us!" 

When he said these words, the specter took his wrapper 
from the table, and bound it round his head, as before. 
Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound his teeth made when 
the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ven- 
tured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural 
visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with his chain 
wound over and about his arm. 

The apparition walked backward from him; and at every 
step he took, the window raised itself a little, so that when 
the specter reached it, it was wide open. He beckoned 
Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within 
two paces of each other, Marley's ghost held up his hand, 
warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped. 

Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear; for on 
the raising of the hand he became sensible of confused noises 
in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; 



34 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The 
specter, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful 
dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night. 

Scrooge followed to the window, desperate in his curiosity. 
He looked out. 

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and 
thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every 
one of them wore chains like Marley's ghost; some few (they 
might be guilty governments) were linked together; none 
were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in 
their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, 
in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to 
his ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a 
wretched woman with an infant, whom he saw below, upon 
a doorstep. The misery with them all was, clearly, that 
they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and 
had lost the power forever. 

Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded 
them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices 
faded together; and the night became as it had been when 
he walked home. 

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by 
which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, as he 
had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undis- 
turbed. He tried to say "Humbug!" but stopped at the 
first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, 
or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible 
World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness 
of the hour, much in need of repose, went straight to bed, 
without undressing, and fell asleep on the instant. 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 35 

STAVE TWO "^ 

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 

When Scrooge awoke it was so dark, that, looking out of 
bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window 
from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavoring 
to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes 
of a neighboring church struck the four quarters. So he 
listened for the hour. 

To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from 
six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to 
twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he 
went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have got 
into the works. Twelve! 

He touched the spring of his repeater,** to correct this most 
preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve; and 
stopped. 

"Why, it isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have 
slept through a whole day and far into another night. It 
isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and 
this is twelve at noon!" 

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, 
and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub 
the frost ofF with the sleeve of his dressing gown before he 
could see anything; and could see very little then. All he 
could make out was, that it was still very foggy and ex- 
tremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running 
to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably 
would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and 
taken possession of the world. This was a great relief, be- 
cause "Three days after sight of this First of Exchange" pay 
to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order," and so forth, would 
have become a mere United States' security " if there were no 
days to count by. 

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and 



36 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

thought it over and over, and could make nothing of it. 
The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the 
more he endeavored not to think, the more he thought. 

Marley's ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time 
he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was 
all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring 
released, to its first position, and presented the same problem 
to be worked all through, "Was it a dream or not?" 

Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three 
quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the 
Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. 
He resolved to lie awake until the hour was passed; and, 
considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to 
heaven, this was, perhaps, the wisest resolution in his power. 

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once con- 
vinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and 
missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear. 

"Ding, dong!" 

"A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting. 

"Ding, dong!" 

"Half past," said Scrooge. 

"Ding, dong!" 

"A quarter to it," said Scrooge. 

"Ding, dong!" 

"The hour itself," said Scrooge triumphantly, "and noth- 
ing else!" 

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did 
with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed 
up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed 
were drawn. 

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a 
hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his 
back, but those to which his face was addressed. The cur- 
tains of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up 
into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face 
with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 37 

I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your 
elbow. 

It was a strange figure, — like a child; yet not so like a 
child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural 
medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded 
from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions. 
Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was 
white, as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, 
and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very 
long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of 
uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately 
formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a 
tunic of the purest white; and round its waist was bound a 
lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a 
branch of fresh, green holly in its hand; and, in singular con- 
tradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed 
with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, 
that from the crown of its head there sprang a bright, clear 
jet of light, by which all this was visible; and. which was 
doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a 
great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its 
arm. 

Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with in- 
creasing steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its 
belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in an- 
other, and what was light one instant at another time was 
dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being 
now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty 
legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a 
body; of which dissolving parts no outline would be visible 
in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And, in the 
very wonder of this, it would be itself again, distinct and 
clear as ever. 

"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me.?" 
asked Scrooge. 

"I am!" 



38 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if 
instead of being so close beside him, it were at a dis- 
tance. 

"Who, and what are you?" Scrooge demanded. 

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past." 

"Long past.f^" inquired Scrooge, observant of its dwarfish 
stature. 

"No. Your past." 

Perhaps Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if any- 
body could have asked him, but he had a special desire to see 
the Spirit in his cap, and begged him to be covered.^ 

"What!" exclaimed the Ghost, "would you so soon put 
out, with worldly hands, the light I give.^ Is it not enough 
that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and 
force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon 
my brow?" 

Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to ofFend or any 
knowledge of having willfully "bonneted" the Spirit at any 
period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what busi- 
ness brought him there. « 

"Your welfare!" said the Ghost. ^ 

Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not 
help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been 
more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard him 
thinking, for it said immediately: — 

"Your reclamation, then. Take heed!" 

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him 
gently by the arm. 

"Rise, and walk with me!" 

It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the 
weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian pur- 
poses; that the bed was warm, and the thermometer a long 
way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his 
slippers, dressing gown, and nightcap; and that he had a 
cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a 
woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He rose; but finding 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 39 

that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped its robe 
in supplication. 

"I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, **and liable to 
fall." 

''Bear but a touch of my hand therey'' said the Spirit, laying 
it upon his heart, ''and you shall be upheld in more than 
this!" 

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, 
and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either 
hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it 
was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished 
with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon 
the ground. 

"Good heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, 
as he looked about him. "I was bred in this place. I was a 
boy here!" 

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, 
though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still 
present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious 
of a thousand odors floating in the air, each one connected 
with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares 
long, long, forgotten! 

"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what is 
that upon your cheek?" 

Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, 
that it was a pimple, and begged the Ghost to lead him where 
he would. 

"You recollect the way?" inquired the Spirit. 

"Remember it!" cried Scrooge with fervor, "I could walk 
it blindfold." 

" Strange to have forgotten it for so many years ! " observed 
the Ghost. "Let us go on." 

They walked along the road, Scrooge recognizing every 
gate, and post, and tree; until a little market town appeared 
in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding 
river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards 



40 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

them, with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys 
in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys 
were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the 
broad fields were so full of merry music that the crisp air 
laughed to hear it. 

"These are but shadows of the things that have been/' 
said the Ghost. *'They have no consciousness of us." 

The jocund travelers came on; and as they came, Scrooge 
knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced 
beyond all bounds to see them .? Why did his cold eye glisten, 
and his heart leap up as they went past '^. Why was he filled 
with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry 
Christmas, as they parted at crossroads and byways, for 
their several homes ^ What was Merry Christmas to Scrooge .^ 
Out upon Merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to 
him? 

''The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. ''A 
solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still." 

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed. 

They left the highroad, by a well-remembered lane, and 
soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little 
weathercock-surmounted cupola on the roof, and a bell hang- 
ing in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; 
for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp 
and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. 
Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables, and the coach- 
houses and sheds were overrun with grass. Nor was it more 
retentive of its ancient state within; for entering the dreary 
hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, 
they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was 
an earthy savor in the air, a chilly bareness in the place,, 
which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by 
candlelight, and not too much to eat. 

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a 
door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and 
disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 41 

lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely 
boy was reading n^ar a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down upon 
a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he had 
used to be. 

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle 
from the mice behind the paneling, not a drip from the half- 
thawed waterspout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among 
the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle 
swinging of an empty storehouse door, no, not a clicking in 
the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening 
influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears. 

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his 
younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in 
foreign garments, wonderfully real and distinct to look at, 
stood outside the window, with an ax stuck in his belt, and 
leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood. 

^'Why, it's Ali Baba!"'^ Scrooge exclaimed, in ecstasy. 
"It's dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One 
Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all 
alone, he ^zJ come, for the first time, just like that. Poor 
boy! And Valentine," said Scrooge, "and his wild brother 
Orson; ^ there they go! And what's-his-name, who was put 
down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't 
you see him? And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down 
by the Genii; there he is upon his head! Serve him right! 
I'm glad of it. What business had he to be married to the 
Princess?" 

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature 
on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between 
laughing and crying, and to see his heightened and excited 
face, would have been a surprise to his business friends in 
the city, indeed. 

"There's the parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body and 
yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the 
top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe," he called 
him, when he came home again, after sailing round the 



42 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

island. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin 
Crusoe?' The man thought he was drearping, but he wasn't. 
It was the parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running 
for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!" 

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his 
usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, *'Poor 
boy!" and cried again. 

"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his 
pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with 
his cufF: "but it's too late now." 

'^What is the matter?" asked the Spirit. 

'* Nothing," said Scrooge, '^nothing. There was a boy 
singing a Christmas carol at my door last night. I should 
like to have given him something: that's all." 

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand, 
saying, as it did so, "Let us see another Christmas!" 

Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the 
room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels 
shrank, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out 
of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but 
how all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than 
you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that every- 
thing had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when 
all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays. 

He was not reading now, but walking up and down despair- 
ingly. Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and, with a mournful 
shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door. 

It opened, and a little girl, much younger than the boy, 
came darting in, and, putting her arms about his neck, and 
often kissing him, addressed him as her "dear, dear brother." 

"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said the 
child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. 
"To bring you home, home, home!" 

"Home, little Fan?" returned the boy. 

"Yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "Home, for good 
and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 43 

than he used to be, that home's Hke heaven! He spoke so 
gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed that I 
was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; 
and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring 
you. And you're to be a man!" said the child, opening her 
eyes, *'and are never to come back here; but first, we're to 
be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest 
time in all the world." 

"You are quite a woman, little Fan!" exclaimed the boy. 

She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch 
his head; but, being too little, laughed again, and stood on 
tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her 
childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loath 
to go, accompanied her. 

A terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down Master 
Scrooge's box, there!" and in the hall appeared the school- 
master himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a fero- 
cious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of 
mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him 
and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best 
parlor that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, 
and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were 
waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously 
light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and admin- 
istered installments of those dainties to the young people; 
at the same time sending out a meager servant to offer a 
glass of "something" to the postboy, who answered that he 
thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had 
tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk 
being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the chil- 
dren bade the schoolmaster good-by right willingly; and, 
getting into it, drove gayly down the garden sweep," the 
quick wheels dashing the hoarfrost and snow from off the 
dark leaves of the evergreens like spray. 

"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have 
withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large heart!" 



44 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

*'So she had," cried Scrooge. "You're right. I will not 
gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!" 

''She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as I 
think, children." 

"One child," Scrooge returned. 

"True," said the Ghost. "Your nephew!" 

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, 
"Yes." 

Although they had but that moment left the school behind 
them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, 
where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where 
shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the 
strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain 
enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here, too, it was 
Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the streets 
were lighted up. 

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and askecL 
Scrooge if he knew it. Hi 

"Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed here!" 

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh 
wig," sitting behind such a high desk that if he had been 
two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the 
ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement : — 

"Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig 
alive again!" 

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, 
which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; 
adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, 
from his shoes to his organ of benevolence;" and called out, 
in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice: — 

"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!" 

Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came 
briskly in, accompanied by his fellow 'prentice. 

"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the Ghost. 
"Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached 
to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!" 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 45 

"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to- 
night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's 
have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap 
of his hands, "before a man can say Jack Robinson!" 

You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! 
They charged into the street with the shutters — one, two, 
three — had 'em up in their places — four, five, six — barred 
'em and pinned 'em — seven, eight, nine — and came back 
before you could have got to twelve, panting like race horses. 

"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the 
high desk with wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads, 
and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, 
Ebenezer!" 

Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have 
cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old 
Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every 
movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public 
life forevermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps 
were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the ware- 
house was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ballroom 
as you would desire to see upon a winter's night. 

In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the 
lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty 
stomach aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast, substan- 
tial smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and 
lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they 
broke. In came all the young men and women employed in 
the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the 
baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend, 
the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was 
suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying 
to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who 
was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In 
they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, 
some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pull- 
ing; in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they 



46 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round and back 
again the other way; down the middle and up again; round 
and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old 
top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top 
couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top 
couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When 
this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his 
hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the 
fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially 
provided for that purpose. But, scorning rest, upon his 
reappearance he instantly began again, though there were no 
dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, 
exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a brand-new man re- 
solved to beat him out of sight, or perish. 

There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more 
dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there 
was a great piece of cold roast, and there was a great piece of 
cold boiled, and there were mince pies, and plenty of beer. 
But the great effect of the evening came after the roast and 
boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! the sort of man 
who knew his business better than you or I could have told 
it him!) struck up *'Sir Roger de Coverley." ^ Then old 
Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, 
too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them; three or 
four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be 
trifled with; people who mould dance, and had no notion of 
walking. 

But if they had been twice as many — ah, four times — 
old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would 
Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her^ she was worthy to be his partner 
in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell 
me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue 
from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the 
dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any 
given time, what would become of them next. And when 
old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 47 

dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow 
and courtesy, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again 
to your place; Fezziwig '*cut" ^ — cut so deftly, that he ap- 
peared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again 
without a stagger. 

When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. 
Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side 
the door, and shaking hands with every person individually 
as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas. 
When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did 
the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away, 
and the lads were left to their beds, which were under a 
counter in the back shop. 

During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a 
man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, 
and with his former self. He corroborated everything, 
remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent 
the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright 
faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that 
he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was 
looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burned 
very clear. 

**A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly 
folks so full of gratitude." 

"Small!" echoed Scrooge. 

The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, 
who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig, 
and, when he had done so, said: — 

"Why! Is it not.? He has spent but a few pounds of your 
mortal money: three or four, perhaps. Is that so much that 
he deserves this praise?" 

"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and 
speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter self, — 
"it isn't that. Spirit. He has the power to render us happy 
or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a 
pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; 



48 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to 
add and count 'em up; what then? The happiness he gives 
is quite as great as if it cost a fortune." 

He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped. 

"What is the matter?" asked the Ghost. 

"Nothing particular," said Scrooge. 

"Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted. 

"No," said Scrooge, — "no. I should like to be able to 
say a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all." 

His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utter- 
ance to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood 
side by side in the open air. 

"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!" 

This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom 
he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For 
again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the 
prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of 
later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and 
avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the 
eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and 
where the shadow of the growing tree would fall. 

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl 
in a mourning dress, in whose eyes there were tears, which 
sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of Christ- 
mas Past. 

"It matters little," she said softly. "To you, very little. 
Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and com- 
fort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have 
no just cause to grieve." 

"What idol has displaced you?" he rejoined. 

"A golden one." 

"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said. 
"There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and 
there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity 
as the pursuit of wealth!" 

"You fear the world too much," she answered gently. 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 49 

"All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being 
beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your 
nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master passion, 
Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?" 

**What then?" he retorted. **Even if I have grown so 
much wiser, what then ? I am not changed towards you." 

She shook her head. 

"Ami?" 

"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were 
both poor, and content to be so, until, in good season, we 
could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. 
You are changed. When it was made, you were another 
man." 

"I was a boy," he said impatiently. 

"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you 
are," she returned. "I am. That which promised happiness 
when we were one in heart is fraught with misery now that 
we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of 
this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it, and 
can release you." 

"Have I ever sought release?" 

"In words. No. Never." 

"In what, then?" 

"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another 
atmosphere of life; another hope as its great end. In every- 
thing that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. 
If this had never been between us," said the girl, looking 
mildly, but with steadiness, upon him, "tell me, would you 
seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!" 

He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in 
spite of himself. But he said, with a struggle, "You think 
not." 

"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered, 
"Heaven knows! When / have learned a truth like this, I 
know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you 
were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe 



50 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

that you would choose a dowerless girl, — you who, In your 
very confidence with her, weigh everything by gain; or, 
choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your 
one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your 
repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I 
release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once 
were." 

He was about to speak; but, with her head turned from 
him, she resumed: — 

'* You may — the memory of what is past half makes me 
hope you will — have pain in this. A very, very brief time, 
and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an un- 
profitable dream, from which it happened well that you 
awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!'' 

She left him, and they parted. 

*' Spirit!" said Scrooge, '*show me no more! Conduct me 
home. Why do you delight to torture me.f^" 

"One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost. 

"No more!" cried Scrooge, — "no more. I don't wish to 
see it. Show me no more!" 

But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, 
and forced him to observe what happened next. 

They were in another scene and place; a room, not very 
large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter 
fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge 
believed it the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, 
sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was 
perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there than 
Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike 
the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children 
conducting themselves like one, but every child was con- 
ducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious 
beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, 
the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it 
very much; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the 
sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. 



THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 51 

What would I not have given to be one of them ! Though I 
never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn^t for the 
wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and 
torn it down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't 
have plucked it ofF, God bless my soul! to save my life. As 
to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young 
brood, I couldn't have done it; I should have expected my 
arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never 
come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, 
I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that 
she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes 
of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let 
loose waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake 
beyond price; in short, I should have liked, I do confess, to 
have had the lightest license of a child, and yet to have been 
man enough to know its value. 

But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a 
rush immediately ensued that she, with laughing face and 
plundered dress, was borne towards it, in the center of a 
flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, 
who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas 
toys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, 
and the onslaught that was made on the defenseless porter! 
The scaling him, with chairs for ladders, to dive into his 
pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight 
by his cravat, hug him round the neck, pommel his back, 
and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of 
wonder and delight with which the development of every 
package was received! The terrible announcement that the 
baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying pan 
into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having 
swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter! 
The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, 
and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. 
It is enough that, by degrees, the children and their emotions 
got out of the parlor, and, by one stair at a time, up to the 



52 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

top of the house, where they went to bed, and so sub- 
sided. ^ 

And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, 
when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning 
fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own 
fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, 
quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called 
him father, and been a springtime in the haggard winter of 
his life, his sight grew very dim indeed. 

"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a 
smile, "I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon." 

"Who was it.?" 

"Guess!" 

"How can I? Tut, don't I know.?" she added in the same 
breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge." 

"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as 
it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely 
help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I 
hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in the world, I do 
believe." 

"Spirit!" said Scrooge, in a broken voice, "remove me 
from this place." 

"I told you these were shadows of the things that have 
been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do 
not blame me!" 

"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed. "I cannot bear it!" 

He turned upon the Ghost, and, seeing that it looked 
upon him with a face in which, in some strange way, there 
were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled 
with it. 

*^ Leave me! Take me back! Haunt me no longer!" 

In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which 
the Ghost, with no visible resistance on its own part, was 
undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge ob- 
served that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly 
connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 53 

extinguisher-cap, and by sudden action pressed it down 
upon its head. 

The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher 
covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down 
with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed 
from under it in an unbroken flood upon the ground. 

He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an 
irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own 
bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his 
hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed before he 
sank into a heavy sleep. 



STAVE THREE 

THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 

Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and 
sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had 
no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke 
of one. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the 
right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a con- 
ference with the second messenger dispatched to him through 
Jacob Marley's intervention. But, finding that he turned 
uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his 
curtains this new specter would draw back, he put them 
every one aside with his own hands, and, lying down again, 
established a sharp lookout all round the bed. For he 
wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appear- 
ance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and made 
nervous. 

Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves 
on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually 
equal to the time of day, express the wide range of their 
capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for 
anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between 
which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably 



54 ^ CHRISTMAS CAROL 

wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without ven- 
turing for Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind 
calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad 
field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a 
baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. 

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by 
any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when 
the bell struck one, and no shape appeared, he was taken 
with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a 
quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time 
he lay upon his bed, the very core and center of a blaze of 
ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock pro- 
claimed the hour; and which, being only light, was more 
alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make 
out what it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes appre- 
hensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting 
case of spontaneous combustion, without having the con- 
solation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think, — 
as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the 
person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have 
been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too, — 
at last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of 
this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from 
whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea 
taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly, and 
shuffled in his slippers to the door. 

The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange 
voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed. 

It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. 
But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The 
walls and ceiling were so hung with living green that it 
looked a perfect grove; from every part of which bright, 
gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistle- 
toe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little 
mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze 
went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrifaction of a 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 55 

hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or 
for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the 
floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, 
poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking pigs, long 
wreaths of sausages, mince pies, plum puddings, barrels of 
oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy 
oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes,^ and seething 
bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their 
dehcious steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a 
jolly Giant,^ glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in 
shape not unlike Plenty's horn," and held it up, high up, to 
shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door. 

''Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost, — ''come in! and know 
me better, man!" 

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this 
Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and 
though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like 
to meet them. 

"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit. 
"Look upon me!" 

Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple, 
deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This 
garment hung so loosely on the figure that its capacious 
breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed 
by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample 
folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore 
no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with 
shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; 
free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its 
cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanor, and its joyful air. 
Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no 
sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with 
rust. 

"You have never seen the like of me before!" exclaimed 
the Spirit. 

"Never," Scrooge made answer to it. 



56 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

^'Have never walked forth with the younger members'* 
of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder broth- 
,ers born in these later years?" pursued the Phantom. 

^'I don't think I have," said Scrooge. "I am afraid I have 
not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?" 

"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost. 

*'A tremendous family to provide for," muttered Scrooge. 

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. 

*' Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me where 
you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learned 
a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught 
to teach me, let me profit by it." 

"Touch my robe!" 

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. 

Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, 
poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, 
fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, 
the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night; and they stood 
in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the 
weather was severe) the people made a rough but brisk and 
not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the 
pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of 
their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see 
it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting 
into artificial little snowstorms. 

The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows 
blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow 
upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; 
which last deposit had been plowed up in deep furrows by 
the heavy wheels of carts and wagons; furrows that crossed 
and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great 
streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to 
trace, in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was 
gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a 
dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles 
descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 57 

in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were 
blazing away to their dear hearts' content. There was noth- 
ing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there 
an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air 
and brightest summer sun might have endeavored to diffuse 
in vain. 

For the people who were shoveling away on the housetops 
were jovial and full of glee, calling out to one another from 
the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snow- 
ball, — better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest, — 
laughing heartily if it went right, and not less heartily if it 
went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, 
and the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were 
great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the 
waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and 
tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. 
There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed, Spanish 
onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish 
friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at 
the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung- 
up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high 
in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, 
in the shopkeepers' benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous 
hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they 
passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, re- 
calling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, 
and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; 
there were Norfolk biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off 
the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great com- 
pactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and be- 
seeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after 
dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these 
choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant- 
blooded race, appeared to know that there was something 
going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their 
little world in slow and passionless excitement. 



5 8 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

The grocers' ! oh, the grocers' ! nearly closed, with perhaps 
two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such 
glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on 
the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller 
parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled 
up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended 
scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even 
that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so 
extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, 
the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and 
spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on 
feel faint, and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs 
were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in 
modest tartness from their highly decorated boxes, or that 
everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but 
the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful 
promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other 
at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left 
their purchases upon the counter, and came running back 
to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, 
in the best humor possible; while the grocer and his people 
were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which 
they fastened their aprons behind might have been their 
own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas 
daws " to peck at, if they chose. 

But soon the steeples called good people all to church and 
chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in 
their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the 
same time there emerged from scores of by-streets, lanes, 
and nameless turnings innumerable people, carrying their 
dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revelers 
appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood, with 
Scrooge beside him, in a baker's doorway, and, taking off 
the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their 
dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind 
of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words be- 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 59 

tween some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he 
shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good 
humor was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame 
to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love 
it, so it was! 

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and 
yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners, 
and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of 
wet above each baker's oven, where the pavement smoked 
as if its stones were cooking too. 

''Is there a peculiar flavor in what you sprinkle from your 
torch?" asked Scrooge. 

''There is. My own." 

"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day.?"* 
asked Scrooge. 

"To any kindly given. To a poor one most." 

"Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge. 

"Because it needs it most." 

"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I 
wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, 
should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of in- 
nocent enjoyment." 

"I!" cried the Spirit. 

"You would deprive them of their means of dining every 
seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said 
to dine at all," said Scrooge: "wouldn't you?" 

"I!" cried the Spirit. 

"You seek to close these places ^ on the seventh day," 
said Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing." 

"/ seek!" exclaimed the Spirit. 

"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your 
name, or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge. 

"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the 
Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds 
of passion, pride, ill will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfish- 
ness in our name, who are as strange to us, and all our kith 



6o A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and 
charge their doings on themselves, not us." 

Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on, in- 
visible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the 
town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which 
Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding 
his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place 
with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as 
gracefully, and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible 
he could have done in any lofty hall. 

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in 
showing ofF this power of his, or else it was his own kind, 
generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men, 
that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he went, 
and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and on the 
threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless 
Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch. 
Think of that! Bob had but fifteen ''bob" "" a week himself; 
he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian 
name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his 
four-roomed house! 

Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out 
but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, 
which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and 
she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of 
her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter 
Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and 
getting the corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob's 
private property, conferred upon his son and heir in honor 
of the day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly 
attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable 
parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came 
tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt 
the goose, and known it for their own; and, basking in luxu- 
rious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits 
danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 6l 

to the skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly 
choked him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes, bubbling 
up, knocked loudly at the saucepan lid to be let out and 
peeled. 

"What has ever got your precious father, then?" said 
Mrs. Cratchit. *'And your brother. Tiny Tim.f^ And Mar- 
tha warn't as late last Christmas Day by half an hour!'* 

*' Here's Martha, mother," said a girl, appearing as she 
spoke. 

''Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young Cratchits. 
''Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!" 

"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!" 
said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking 
off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. 

"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the 
girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!" 

"Well! Never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs. 
Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have 
a warm. Lord bless ye!" 

"No, no! There's father coming," cried the two young 
Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha, 
hide!" 

So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, 
with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, 
hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned 
up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his 
shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had 
his limbs supported by an iron frame! 

"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking 
round. 

"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit. 

"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in his 
high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way 
from church, and had come home rampant. "Not coming 
upon Christmas Day!" 

Martha didn't Hke to see him disappointed, if it were only 



62 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet 
door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits 
hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the washhouse, 
that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper. 

''And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit, 
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had 
hugged his daughter to his heart's content. 

"As good as gold," said Bob, ''and better. Somehow he 
gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the 
strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, 
that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he 
was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember, 
upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk and 
blind men see." 

Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and 
trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing 
strong and hearty. 

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back 
came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted 
by his brother and sister to his stool beside the fire; and 
while Bob, turning up his cuflPs, — as if, poor fellow, they 
were capable of being made more shabby, — compounded 
some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it 
round and round, and put it on the hob to simmer. Master 
Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch 
the goose, with which they soon returned in high proces- 
sion. 

Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose 
the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a 
black swan was a matter of course, — and in truth it was 
something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the 
gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; 
Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor; 
Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha dusted 
the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner 
at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 63 

not forgetting themselves, and, mounting guard upon their 
posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should 
shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last 
the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded 
by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all 
along the carving knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; 
but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing 
issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, 
and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, 
beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly 
cried, "Hurrah!" 

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe 
there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and 
flavor, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal 
admiration. Eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes, 
it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as 
Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small 
atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! 
Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits 
in particular were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! 
But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. 
Cratchit left the room alone — too nervous to bear wit- 
nesses — to take the pudding up, and bring it in. 

Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should 
break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got 
over the wall of the back yard, and stolen it, while they were 
merry with the goose, — a supposition at which the two 
young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were 
supposed. 

Hallo ! A great deal of steam ! The pudding was out of the 
copper. A smell like a washing day! That was the cloth. 
A smell Hke an eating house and a pastry cook's next door to 
each other, with a laundress's door next to that! That was 
the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered — 
flushed, but smiling proudly — with the pudding, like a 
speckled cannon ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of 



64 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christ- 
mas holly stuck into the top. 

Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly, 
too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by 
Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that, 
now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had 
her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had 
something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it 
was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have 
been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed 
to hint at such a thing. 

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the 
hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the 
jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges 
were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the 
fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth in 
what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and 
at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass, — 
two tumblers, and a custard cup without a handle. 

These held the hot stuffs from the jug, however, as well as 
golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with 
beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and 
cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed : — 

"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!'^ 

Which all the family reechoed. 

"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all. 

He sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. 
Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the 
child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that 
he might be taken from him. 

"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt 
before, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live." 

"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor 
chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully 
preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, 
the child will die." 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 65 

"No, no," said Scrooge. ''Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will 
be spared." 

"If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, none 
other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here. 
What then.? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and de- 
crease the surplus population." 

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the 
Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. 

"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not 
adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered 
what the surplus is, and where it is. Will you decide what 
men shall live, what men shall die.?* It may be that in the 
sight of heaven you are more worthless and less fit to live 
than millions like this poor man's child. O God! to hear the 
insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his 
hungry brothers in the dust!" 

Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and, trembling, 
cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, 
on hearing his own name. 

"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob; "I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the 
Founder of the Feast!" 

"The Founder of the Feast, indeed!" cried Mrs. Cratchit, 
reddening. "I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of 
my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite 
for it." 

"My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas Day." 

"It should be Christmas Day, I am sure," said she, "on 
which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, 
unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert! 
Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!" 

"My dear," was Bob's mild answer, "Christmas Day." 

"I'll drink his health for your sake, and the day's," said 
Mrs. Cratchit, "not for his. Long life to him! A Merry 
Christmas and a Happy New Year! He'll be very merry 
and very happy, I have no doubt!" 

The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of 



66 ' A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. Tiny Tim 
drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. 
Scrooge was the ogre of the family. The mention of his 
name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dis- 
pelled for full five minutes. 

After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier 
than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being 
done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in 
his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full 
five-and-sixpence ^ weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed 
tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; 
and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from be- 
tween his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular 
investments he should favor when he came into the receipt 
of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor ap- 
prentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work 
she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, 
and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good, 
long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. 
Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, 
and how the lord "was much about as tall as Peter"; at 
which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you couldn't 
have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the 
chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by and by 
they had a song, about a lost child traveling in the snow, 
from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it 
very well indeed. 

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not 
a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes 
were far from being waterproof; their clothes were scanty; 
and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside 
of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy, grateful, pleased 
with one another, and contented with the time; and when 
they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings 
of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon 
them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last. 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 67 

By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty 
heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, 
the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlors, and 
all sorts of rooms was wonderful. Here, the flickering of the 
blaze showed preparations for a cozy dinner, with hot plates 
baking through and through before the fire, and deep red 
curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. 
There, all the children of the house were running out into 
the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, 
uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again, 
were shadows on the window blinds of guests assembling; 
and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur- 
booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some 
near neighbor's house, where, woe upon the single man who 
saw them enter — artful witches ! well they knew it — in a 
glow. 

But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on 
their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought 
that no one was at home to give them welcome when they 
got there, instead of every house expecting company, and 
piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how 
the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and 
opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with 
a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything 
within its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on before, 
dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was 
dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly 
as the Spirit passed, though little kenned ^ the lamplighter 
that he had any company but Christmas! 

And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, 
they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous 
masses of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the 
burial place of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever 
it listed, or would have done so, but for the frost that held it 
prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse, 
rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a 



68 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an 
instant, like a sullen eye, and, frowning lower, lower yet, 
was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night. 

"What place is this?" asked Scrooge. 

"A place where miners live, who labor in the bowels of 
the earth," returned the Spirit. ''But they know me. See!" 

A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they 
advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and 
stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a 
glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their chil- 
dren and their children's children, and another generation 
beyond that, all decked out gayly in their holiday attire. 
The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling 
of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christ- 
mas song, — it had been a very old song when he was a 
boy, — and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. 
So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got blithe 
and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigor sank 
again. 

The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his 
robe, and, passing on above the moor, sped — whither .f* Not 
to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw 
the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them; 
and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it 
rolled, and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it 
had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth. 

Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or 
so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed the 
wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great 
heaps of seaweed clung to its base, and storm birds — born 
of the wind, one might suppose, as seaweed of the water — 
rose and fell about.it, like the waves they skimmed. 

But even here, two men who watched the light had made 
a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed 
out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny 
hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 69 

each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of 
them, the elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred 
with hard weather, as the figurehead of an old ship might 
be, struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale in itself. 

Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving 
sea, — on, on, — until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, 
from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside 
the helmsman at the wheel, the lookout in the bow, the 
officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their 
several stations; but every man among them hummed a 
Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below 
his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, 
with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on 
board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder 
word for one another on that day than on any day in the 
year; and had shared to some extent in its festivities; and 
had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had 
known that they delighted to remember him. 

It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the 
moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it 
was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown 
abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as death, — it 
was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear 
a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge 
to recognize it as his own nephew's, and to find himself in a 
bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling 
by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving 
affability! 

*'Ha, ha!" laughed Scrooge's nephew. "Ha, ha, ha!" 

If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a 
man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can 
say is, I should like to know him, too. Introduce him to me, 
and I'll cultivate his acquaintance. 

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, 
that, while there is infection in disease and sorrow, 
there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as 



70 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

laughter and good humor. When Scrooge's nephew laughed 
In this way, holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting 
his face into the most extravagant contortions, Scrooge's 
niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their 
assembled friends, being not a bit behindhand, roared out 
lustily. 

"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!" 

"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!" cried 
Scrooge's nephew. "He believed it, too!" 

"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece in- 
dignantly. Bless those women! they never do anything by 
halves. They are always in earnest. 

She was very pretty; exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, 
surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that 
seemed made to be kissed, — as no doubt it was; all kinds of 
good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another 
when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw 
in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what you 
would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, 
too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory! 

"He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's nephew, "that's 
the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be. However, 
his offenses carry their own punishment, and I have nothing 
to say against him." 

"I'm sure he is very rich, Ered," hinted Scrooge's niece. 
"At least you always tell me so." 

"What of that, my dear.f^" said Scrooge's nephew. "His 
wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it. 
He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the 
satisfaction of thinking — ha, ha, ha! — that he is ever going 
to benefit us with it." 

"I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's niece. 
Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed 
the same opinion. 

"Oh, I have!" said Scrooge's nephew. "I am sorry for 
him: I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 7 1 

by his ill whims? Himself, always. Here, he takes it into 
his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us. 
What's the consequence.? He don't lose much of a dinner." 

'* Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted 
Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they 
must be allowed to have been competent judges, because 
they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the 
table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight. 

''Well! I am very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, 
''because I haven't any great faith in these young house- 
keepers. What do you say. Topper.?" 

Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's 
niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched 
outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the sub- 
ject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister — the plump one with 
the lace tucker, not the one with the roses — blushed. 

"Do go on, Fred," said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. 
"He never finishes what he begins to say! He is such a 
ridiculous fellow!" 

Scrooge's nephew reveled in another laugh, and as it was 
impossible to keep the infection off, though the plump sister 
tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar, his example was 
unanimously followed. 

"I was only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew, "that 
the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making 
merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant 
moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses 
pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, 
either in his moldy old office or his dusty chambers. I 
mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he 
likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till 
he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it — I defy him 
— if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after year, 
and saying, 'Uncle Scrooge, how are you?' If it only puts 
him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's 
something; and I think I shook him, yesterday." 



72 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

It was their turn to laugh now, at the notion of his shaking 
Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much 
caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any 
rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the 
bottle joyously. 

After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical 
family, and knew what they were about, when they sang a 
glee or catch,'* I can assure you: especially Topper, who could 
growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the 
large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. 
Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and played, 
among other tunes, a simple little air (a mere nothing: you 
might learn to whistle it in two minutes) which had been 
familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding 
school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas 
Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that 
ghost had shown him came upon his mind; he softened more 
and more; and thought that if he could have listened to it 
often, years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses 
of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without 
resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Mar- 
ley."* 

But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After 
a while they played at forfeits; '^ for it is good to be children 
sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its 
mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first 
a game at blindman's bufF. Of course there was. And I no 
more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had 
eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing 
between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of 
Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that 
plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity 
of human nature. Knocking down the fire irons, tumbling 
over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering 
himself amongst the curtains, wherever she went, there went 
he! He always knew where the plump sister was. He 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 73 

wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against 
him (as some of them did) on purpose, he would have made 
a feint of endeavoring to seize you, which would have 
been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly 
have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. She often 
cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not. But 
when, at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her silken 
rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into 
a corner whence there was no escape, then his conduct was 
the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his 
pretending that it was necessary to touch her headdress, and 
further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain 
ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck, was 
vile, monstrous! No doubt she told him her opinion of it, 
when, another blind man being in office, they were so very 
confidential together, behind the curtains. 

Scrooge's niece was not one of the blindman's buff party, 
but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool, 
in a snug corner where the Ghost and Scrooge were close 
behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her love 
to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. Likewise 
at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very great, 
and, to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters 
hollow; though they were sharp girls, too, as Topper could 
have told you. There might have been twenty people there, 
young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for, 
wholly forgetting, in the interest he had in what was going 
on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes 
came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed 
right, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, war- 
ranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; 
blunt as he took it in his head to be. 

The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, 
and looked upon him with such favor, that he begged like 
a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But 
this the Spirit said could not be done. 



74 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half hour, 
Spirit, only one!'^ 

It was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew 
had to think of something, and the rest must find out what; 
he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case 
was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed, 
elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live 
animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an 
animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked 
sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about the 
streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by any- 
body, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in 
a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, 
or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every 
fresh question that was put to him, his nephew burst into 
a fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, 
that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At 
last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried 
out: — 

"I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know 
what it is!" 

"What is it?" cried Fred. M 

"It's your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!" ™ 

Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal 
sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a 
bear?" ought to have been "Yes"; inasmuch as an answer 
in the negative was suflScient to have diverted their thoughts 
from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency 
that way. 

"He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure," said 
Fred, "and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. 
Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the 
moment; and I say, * Uncle Scrooge!'" 

"Well! Uncle Scrooge!" they cried. 

"A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old 
man, whatever he is!" said Scrooge's nephew. "He wouldn't 



THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 75 

take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle 
Scrooge ! " 

Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light 
of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious com- 
pany in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech, if 
the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed 
off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew; and 
he and the Spirit were again upon their travels. 

Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they 
visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood be- 
side sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and 
they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were 
patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was rich. 
In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every refuge, 
where vain man in his little brief authority had not made 
fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, 
and taught Scrooge his precepts. 

It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge 
had his doubts of this, because the Christmas holidays ap- 
peared to be condensed into the space of time they passed 
together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained 
unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly 
older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke 
of it, until they left a children's Twelfth-night party," when, 
looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, 
he noticed that its hair was gray. 

''Are spirits' lives so short?" asked Scrooge. 

*'My life upon this globe is very brief," replied the Ghost. 
"It ends to-night." 

"To-night!" cried Scrooge. 

"To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing 
near." 

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven 
at that moment. 

"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said 
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see 



76 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding 
from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?" 

''It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,'' was 
the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here." 

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children, 
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt 
down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its gar- 
ment. 

''O Man! look here! Look, look, down here!" exclaimed 
the Ghost. 

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meager, ragged, scowl- 
ing, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where 
graceful youth should have filled their features out, and 
touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shriveled 
hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted them, and 
pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat en- 
throned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, 
no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, 
through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters 
half so horrible and dread. 

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to 
him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but 
the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie 
of such enormous magnitude. 

''Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more. 

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon 
them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. 
This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them 
both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, 
for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the 
writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out 
its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye! 
Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! 
And bide the end!" 

"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge. 

"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him 



THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 77 

for the last time with his own words. "Are there no work- 
houses?" 

The bell struck twelve. 

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. 
As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the pre- 
diction of old Jacob Marley, and, lifting up his eyes, beheld 
a solemn phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist 
along the ground, towards him. 

STAVE FOUR 

THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When 
it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in 
the very air through which this spirit moved it seemed to 
scatter gloom and mystery. 

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed 
its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save 
one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been 
difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it 
from the darkness by which it was surrounded. 

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside 
him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a sol- 
emn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke 
nor moved. 

"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to 
Come?" said Scrooge. 

The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its 
hand. 

*'You are about to show me shadows of the things that 
have not happened, but will happen in the time before us," 
Scrooge pursued. "Is that so. Spirit?" 

The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an 
instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. 
That was the only answer he received. 



78 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

Although well used to ghostly company by this time, 
Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled 
beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when 
he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as 
observing his condition, and giving him time to recover. 

But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him 
with a vague uncertain horror, to know that, behind the 
dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon 
him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost, 
could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of 
black. 

"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more 
than any specter I have seen. But as I know your purpose 
is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man 
from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and 
do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?" 

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight be- 
fore them. 

"Lead on!" said Scrooge, — "lead on! The night is wan- 
ing fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on. 
Spirit!" 

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. 
Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him 
up, he thought, and carried him along. 

They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city 
rather seemed to spring up about them, and encompass 
them of its own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; 
on 'Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and 
down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed 
in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thought- 
fully with their great gold seals, and so forth, as Scrooge had 
seen them often. 

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. 
Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge ad- 
vanced to listen to their talk. 

"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, "I 



THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 79 

don't know much about it either way. I only know he's 
dead." 

^'When did he die?" inquired another. 

"Last night, I beHeve." 

"Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a third, 
taking a vast quantity of snufF out of a very large snuffbox. 
"I thought he'd never die." 

"God knows," said the first, with a yawn. 

"What has he done with his money?" asked a red-faced 
gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his 
nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey cock. 

"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin, 
yawning again. "Left it to his company, perhaps. He 
hasn't left it to me. That's all I know." 

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh. 

"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same 
speaker; "for, upon my Hfe, I don't know of anybody to go 
to it. Suppose we make up a party, and volunteer?" 

"I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed the 
gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. " But I must be 
fed, if I make one." 

Another laugh. 

"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all," 
said the first speaker, "for I never wear black gloves, and I 
never eat lunch. But I'll oflFer to go, if anybody else will. 
When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't 
his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak 
whenever we met. By-by!" 

Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with 
other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards 
the Spirit for an explanation. 

The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed 
to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking 
that the explanation might lie here. 

He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of 
business: very wealthy, and of great importance. He had 



8o A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

made a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a 
business point of view, that is; strictly in a business point 
of view. 

"How are you?" said one. 

**How are you?" returned the other. 

"Well," said the first. "Old Scratch has got his own at 
last, hey?" 

"So I am told," returned the second. "Cold, isn't it?" 

"Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skater, I 
suppose?" 

"No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!" 

Not another word. That was their meeting, their conver- 
sation, and their parting. 

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit 
should attach importance to conversations apparently so 
trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden 
purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. 
They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the 
death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was past, and this 
Ghost's province was the future. Nor could he think of 
any one immediately connected with himself, to whom he 
could apply them. But nothing doubting that, to whomso- 
ever they applied, they had some latent moral for his own 
improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard, 
and everything he saw; and especially to observe the shadow 
of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation 
that the conduct of his future self would give him the clew 
he missed, and would render the solution of these riddles easy. 

He looked about in that very place for his own image; but 
another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though 
the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, 
he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that 
poured in through the porch. It gave him little surprise, 
however, for he had been revolving in his mind a change of 
life, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions 
carried out in this. 



THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 8 1 

Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its 
outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his thought- 
ful quest, he fancied, from the turn of the hand and its situa- 
tion in reference to himself, that the unseen eyes were look- 
ing at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel very cold. 

They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part 
of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before, 
although he recognized its situation, and its bad repute. 
The ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses 
wretched; the people half naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. 
Alleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their 
offenses of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling 
streets; and the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth 
and misery. 

Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, 
beetling shop, below a penthouse roof," where iron, old rags, 
bottles, bones, and greasy ofFal were bought. Upon the floor 
within were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, 
hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. 
Secrets that few would like to scrutinize were bred and 
hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted 
fat, and sepulchers of bones. Sitting in among the wares 
he dealt in, by a charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a 
gray-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age; who had 
screened himself from the cold air without by a frowzy cur- 
taining of miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line, and smoked 
his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement. 

Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this 
man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the 
shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman, 
similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by 
a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight 
: of them than they had been upon the recognition of each 
other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which 
* the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three 
burst into a laugh. 



82 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

^Xet the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she who 
had entered first. *'Let the laundress alone to be the second; 
and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look 
here, old Joe, here's a chance! If we haven't all three met 
here without meaning it!" 

''You couldn't have met in a better place," said old Joe, 
removing his pipe from his mouth. ''Come into the parlor. 
You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other 
two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. 
Ah! How it skreeks! There an't such a rusty bit of metal 
in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's 
no such old bones here as mine. Ha, ha! We're all suitable 
to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the parlor. 
Come into the parlor." 

The parlor was the space behind the screen of rags. The 
old man raked the fire together with an old stair rod, and 
having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night) with the 
stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again. 

While he did this, the woman who had already spoken 
threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting 
manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and 
looking with a bold defiance at the other two. 

"What odds, then.? What odds, Mrs. Dilber.?" said the 
woman. "Every person has a right to take care of them- 
selves. He always did!" 

"That's true, indeed!" said the laundress. "No man 
more so." 

"Why, then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, 
woman! Who's the wiser.? We're not going to pick holes in 
each other's coats, I suppose.?" 

"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. 
"We should hope not." 

"Very well, then!" cried the woman. "That's enough. 
Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these.? Not 
a dead man, I suppose.?" 

"No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing. 



THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 83 

"If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked 
old screw/' pursued the woman, ''why wasn't he natural 
in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody 
to look after him when he was struck with death, instead of 
lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself." 

''It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs. 
Dilber. "It's a judgment on him." 

"I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the 
woman; "and it should have been, you may depend upon it, 
if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that 
bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out 
plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to 
see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves, 
before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, 
Joe." 

But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; 
* and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first, pro- 
duced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a 
pencil case, a pair of sleeve buttons, and a brooch of no great 
value, were all. They were severally examined and appraised 
by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give 
for each upon the wall, and added them up into a total when 
he found that there was nothing more to come. 

"That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't give 
another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who's 
next?" 

Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a Httle wearing 
apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar 
tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall 
in the same manner. 

"I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness 
of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. 
"That's your account. If you asked me for another penny, 
and made it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal, 
and knock off half a crown." 

"And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first woman. 



84 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of 
opening it, and, having unfastened a great many knots, 
dragged out a large, heavy roll of some dark stuff. 

"What do you call this?" said Joe. ''Bed curtains?" 

''Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward 
on her crossed arms. "Bed curtains!" 

"You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and all, 
with him lying there?" said Joe. 

"Yes, I do," replied the woman. "Why not?" 

"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, "and 
you'll certainly do it." 

"I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything 
in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he was, 
I promise you, Joe," returned the woman coolly. "Don't 
drop that oil upon the blankets, now." 

"His blankets?" asked Joe. 

"Whose else's do you think?" replied the woman. "He* 
isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say." 

"I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?" said 
old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up. 

"Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. "I 
an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for such 
things, if he did. Ah! You may look through that shirt till 
your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor a thread- 
bare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too. They'd 
have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me." 

"What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe. 

"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied 
the woman, with a laugh. "Somebody was fool enough to do 
it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for 
such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite 
as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did 
in that one." 

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat 
grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the 
old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and 



THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 85 

disgust which could hardly have been greater, though they 
had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself. 

*'Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman, when old Joe, pro- 
ducing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their several 
gains upon the ground. "This is the end of it, you see! He 
frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to 
profit us when he was dead. Ha, ha, ha!" 

** Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. "I 
see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. 
My life tends that way now. Merciful heaven, what is this .?" 

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now 
he almost touched a bed, — a bare, uncurtained bed, on 
which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered 
up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful 
language. 

The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any 
accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a 
secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. 
A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed; 
and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared 
for, was the body of this man. 

Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand 
was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly ad- 
justed that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger 
upon Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He 
thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to 
do it, but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dis- 
miss the specter at his side. 

Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar 
here,'* and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy com- 
mand; for this ^ is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, 
and honored head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread 
purposes, or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand 
is heavy, and will fall down when released; it is not that the 
heart and pulse are still: but that the hand was open, gener- 
ous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the 



86 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good 
deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life 
immortal ! 

No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and 
yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He thought, 
if this man could be raised up now, what would be his fore- 
most thoughts ^. Avarice, hard dealing, griping cares ? They 
have brought him to a rich end, truly! 

He lay, in the dark, empty house, with not a man, a woman, 
or a child to say he was kind to me in this or that, and for the 
memory of one kind word I will be kind to him. A cat was 
tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats 
beneath the hearthstone. What they wanted in the room of 
death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge 
did not dare to think. 

*' Spirit!" he said, *'this is a fearful place. In leaving it, 
I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!" 

Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head. 

*'I understand you," Scrooge returned, '^and I would do 
it, if I could. But I have not the power. Spirit. I have not 
the power." 

Again it seemed to look upon him. 

"If there is any person in the town who feels emotion 
caused by this man's death," said Scrooge, quite agonized, 
"show that person to me. Spirit, I beseech you!" 

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a mo- 
ment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room by 
daylight, where a mother and her children were. 

She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness: 
for she walked up and down the room; started at every sound; 
looked out from the window; glanced at the clock; tried, but 
in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly bear the 
voices of her children in their play. 

At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried 
to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was care- 
worn and depressed, though he was young. There was a 



THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 87 

remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight of 
which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress. 

He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him 
by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news (which 
was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed 
how to answer. 

"Is it good," she said, "or bad.f*'' — to help him. 

"Bad,'^ he answered. 

"We are quite ruined.^" 

"No. There is hope yet, Caroline." 

"If A^ relents," she said, amazed, "there is! Nothing is 
past hope, if such a miracle has happened." 

"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead." 

She was a mild and patient creature, if her face spoke 
truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she 
said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the 
next moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion 
of her heart. 

"What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last 
night said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week's 
delay, and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me, 
turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, 
but dying, then." 

"To whom will our debt be transferred.?" 

"I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready 
with the money; and even though we were not, it would be 
bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his 
successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caro- 
line!" 

Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. 
The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear 
what they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a 
happier house for this man's death! The only emotion that 
the Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of 
pleasure. 

"Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," 



88 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

said Scrooge, "or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left 
just now will be forever present to me/^ 

The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar 
to his feet; and, as they went along, Scrooge looked here and 
there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They 
entered poor Bob Cratchit's house, — the dwelling he had 
visited before, — and found the mother and the children 
seated round the fire. 

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as 
still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, 
who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters 
were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet! 

"'And He took a child, and set him in the midst of them.'" 

Where had Scrooge heard those words .f* He had not 
dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he 
and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on? 

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand 
up to her face. 

"The color hurts my eyes," she said. 

The color.? Ah, poor Tiny Tim! 

"They're better now again," said Cratchit's wife. "It 
makes them weak by candlelight; and I wouldn't show weak 
eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It 
must be near his time." 

"Past it, rather," Peter answered, shutting up his book. 
"But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these 
few last evenings, mother." 

They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a 
steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once: — 

"I have known him walk with — I have known him walk 
with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder very fast indeed." 

"And so have I," cried Peter. "Often." 

"And so have I," exclaimed another. So had all. 

"But he was very light to carry," she resumed, intent upon 
her work, "and his father loved him so, that it was no trou- 
ble, — no trouble. And there is your father at the door!" 



THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 89 

She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his com- 
forter — he had need of it, poor fellow — came in. His tea 
was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should 
help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got upon 
his knees, and laid, each child, a little cheek against his face, 
as if they said, "Don't mind it, father. Don't be grieved!" 

Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly 
to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and 
praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. 
They would be done long before Sunday, he said. 

"Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?" said his 
wife. 

"Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could have 
gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place 
it is. But you'll see it often; I promised him that I would 
walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child ! " cried Bob. 
"My little child!" 

He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he 
could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther 
apart, perhaps, than they were. 

He left the room, and went upstairs into the room above, 
which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. 
There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were 
signs of some one having been there lately. Poor Bob sat 
down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed 
himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what 
had happened, and went down again quite happy. 

They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother 
working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness 
of Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but 
once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing 
that he looked a little — "just a little down, you know," 
said Bob, — inquired what had happened to distress him. 
"On which," said Bob, "for he is the pleasantest-spoken 
gentleman you ever heard, I told him. *I am heartily sorry 
for it, Mr. Cratchit,' he said, * and heartily sorry for your 



go A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

good wife/ By the bye, how he ever knew thaty I don't 
know/' 

*'Knew what, my dear?" 

''Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob. 

''Everybody knows that/' said Peter. 

"Very well observed, my boy!" cried Bob. "I hope they 
do. ' Heartily sorry,' he said, ' for your good wife. If I can 
be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me his card, 
'that's where I live. Pray come to me.' Now it wasn't," 
cried Bob, "for the sake of anything he might be able to 
do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite 
delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny 
Tim, and felt with us." 

"I'm sure he's a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit. 

"You would be sure of it, my dear," returned Bob, "if 
you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised — 
mark what I say! — if he got Peter a better situation." 

"Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit. 

"And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be keeping 
company with some one, and setting up for himself." 

"Get along with you!" retorted Peter, grinning. 

"It's just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these days; 
though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But, how- 
ever and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we 
shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim — shall we.f^ — or this 
first parting that there was among us.^" 

"Never, father!" cried they all. 

"And I know," said Bob, — "I know, my dears, that when 
we recollect how patient and how mild he was, although he 
was a little, little child, we shall not quarrel easily among 
ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it. " 

"No, never, father!" they all cried again. 

"I am very happy," said little Bob, — "I am very happy!" 

Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the 
two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook 
hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God! 



THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 91 

"Specter/' said Scrooge, *^ something informs me that our 
parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. 
Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead/' 

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come conveyed him, as be- 
fore, — though at a different time, he thought; indeed, there 
seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were 
in the future, — into the resorts of business men, but showed 
him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything, 
but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until 
besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment. 

"This court," said Scrooge, "through which we hurry now 
is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length 
of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be, in 
days to come!" 

The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere. 

"The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. "Why do 
you point away.?" 

The inexorable finger underwent no change. 

Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. 
It was an oflSce still, but not his. The furniture was not the 
same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phan- 
tom pointed as before. 

He joined it once again, and, wondering why and whither 
he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. 
He paused to look round before entering. 

A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name 
he had now to learn lay underneath the ground. It was a 
worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and 
weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up 
with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A worthy 
place! 

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to 
one. He advanced towards it, trembling. The Phantom 
was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new 
meaning in its solemn shape. 

"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," 



92 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

said Scrooge, ^^ answer me one question. Are these the shad- 
ows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the 
things that May be, only?" 

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it 
stood. 

''Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if 
persevered in, they must lead,'' said Scrooge. ''But if the 
courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus 
with what you show me!" 

The Spirit was immovable as ever. 

Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and follow- 
ing the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his 
own name, Ebenezer Scrooge. 

"Am / that man who lay upon the bed.?" he cried, upon 
his knees. 

The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again. 

"No, Spirit! Oh, no, no!" 

The finger still was there. 

"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me! 
I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have 
been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am 
past all hope?" 

For the first time the hand appeared to shake. 

"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he 
fell before it, "your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. 
Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have 
shown me, by an altered life!" 

The kind hand trembled. 

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all 
the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. 
The spirits of all three shall strive within me. I will not 
shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may 
sponge away the writing on this stone!" 

In his agony he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free 
itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The 
Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him. 



THE END OF IT 93 

Holding up his. hands in a last prayer to have his fate re- 
versed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. 
It shrank, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost. 

STAVE FIVE 

THE END OF IT 

Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, 
the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the time 
before him was his own, to make amends in! 

*'I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" 
Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. "The spirits 
of all three shall strive within me. O Jacob Marley ! Heaven 
and the Christmas time be praised for this! I say it on my 
knees. Old Jacob; on my knees!" 

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, 
that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He 
had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the Spirit, 
and his face was wet with tears. 

"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding one of 
his bed curtains in his arms, — **they are not torn down, 
rings and all. They are here — I am here — the shadows 
of the things that would have been may be dispelled. They 
will be. I know they will!" 

His hands were busy with his garments all this time; 
turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, 
tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every 
kind of extravagance. 

"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and 
crying in the same breath, and making a perfect Laocoon 
of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I 
am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I 
am as giddy as a drunken man. A Merry Christmas to 
everybody! A Happy New Year to all the world! Hallo 
here! Whoop! Hallo!" 



94 ^ CHRISTMAS CAROL 

He had frisked into the sitting room, and. was now standing 
there, perfectly winded. 

^'There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried 
Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace. 
''There's the door by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley 
entered! There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas 
Present sat! There's the window where I saw the wandering 
spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha, ha, 
ha!" 

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many 
years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The 
father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs! 

"I don't know what day of the month it is," said Scrooge. 
''I don't know how long I have been among the Spirits. I 
don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never mind. I 
don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo 
here!" 

He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing 
out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clash, ham- 
mer; ding, dong, bell! Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, 
clash! Oh, glorious, glorious! 

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his 
head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; 
cold, piping for the blood to dance to; golden sunlight; 
heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! 
glorious ! 

''What's to-day?" cried Scrooge, calling downward to a 
boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look 
about him. 

"Eh.^" returned the boy, with all his might of wonder. 

"What's to-day, my fine fellow.^" said Scrooge. 

"To-day!" replied the boy. "Why, Christmas Day." 

"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I 
haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. 
They can do anything they like. fOf course they can. Of 
course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!" 



THE END OF IT 95 

"Hallo!'' returned the boy. 

"Do you know the poulterer's, in the next street but one, 
at the corner?" Scrooge inquired. 

"I should hope I did," replied the lad. 

"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable boy! 
Do you know whether they've sold the prize turkey that 
was hanging up there .f^ — not the little prize turkey, the big 
one.?" 

"What, the one as big as me.? " returned the boy. 

"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It's a pleasure 
to talk to him. Yes, my buck!" 

"It's hanging there now," replied the boy. 

"Is it.?" said Scrooge. "Go and buy it." 

"Walk-ER!" "" exclaimed the boy. 

"No, no," said Scrooge, "I am in earnest. Go and buy 
it, and tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give them the 
directions where to take it. Come back with the man, and 
ril give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five 
minutes, and I'll give you half a crown!" 

The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady 
hand at a trigger who could have got a shot ofF half so fast. 

"I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's," whispered Scrooge, 
rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. "He shan't 
know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe 
Miller^ never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will be!" 

The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady 
one, but write it he did, somehow, and went downstairs to 
open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's 
man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker 
caught his eye. 

"I shall love it as long as I live!" cried Scrooge, patting it 
with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at it before. What 
an honest expression it has in its face! It's a wonderful 
knocker! — Here's the turkey. Hallo! Whoop! How are 
you ? Merry Christmas ! " 

It was a turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, 



96 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in a minute, 
like sticks of sealing wax. 

"Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town," 
said Scrooge. "You must have a cab." 

The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with 
which he paid for the turkey, and the chuckle with which he 
paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed 
the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which 
he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he 
cried. 

Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to 
shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when 
you don't dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the 
end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking 
plaster over it, and been quite satisfied. 

He dressed himself "all in his best," and at last got out into 
the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as 
he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and 
walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every 
one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, 
in a word, that three or four good-humored fellows said, 
"Good morning, sir! A Merry Christmas to you!" And 
Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he 
had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears. 

He had not gone far, when, coming on towards him he be-, 
held the portly gentleman who had walked into his counting- 
house the day before, and said, "Scrooge and Marley's, I 
believe ? " It sent a pang across his heart to think how this 
old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he 
knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it. 

"My dear sir," said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and tak- 
ing the old gentleman by both his hands, "how do you do.? 
I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. 
A Merry Christmas to you, sir! " 

"Mr. Scrooge.?" 

"Yes," said Scrooge. " That is my name, and I fear it may 



THE END OF IT 97 

not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon. And 
will you have the goodness" — here Scrooge whispered in 
his ear. 

"Lord bless me! '^ cried the gentleman, as if his breath were 
taken away. **My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious.^" 

"If you please," said Scrooge. "Not a farthing less. A 
great many back payments are included in it, I assure you. 
Will you do me that favor.?" 

"My dear sir," said the other, shaking hands with him, 
"I don't know what to say to such munifi" — 

"Don't say anything, please," retorted Scrooge. "Come 
and see me. Will you come and see me.?" 

"I will!" cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he 
meant to do it. 

"Thankee," said Scrooge. "I am much obliged to you. I 
thank you fifty times. Bless you!" 

He went to church, and walked about the streets, and 
watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted the chil- 
dren on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down 
into the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows; and 
found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had 
never dreamed that any walk — that anything — could give 
him so much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his 
steps towards his nephew's house. 

He passed the door a dozen times before he had the courage 
to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and did it. 

"Is your master at home, my dear.? " said Scrooge to the 
girl. Nice girl! Very. 

"Yes, sir." 

"Where is he, my love.?" said Scrooge. 

"He's in the dining room, sir, along with mistress. I'll 
show you upstairs, if you please." 

"Thankee. He knows me," said Scrooge, with his hand 
already on the dining-room lock. "I'll go in here, my dear." 

He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door. 
They were looking at the table (which was spread out in great 



98 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 

array) ; for these young housekeepers are always nervous on 
such points, and Hke to see that everything is right. 

"Fred!^^ said Scrooge. 

Dear heart aHve, how his niece by marriage started! 
Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in 
the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done it, on 
any account. 

''Why, bless my soul! " cried Fred, "who's that? " 

''It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will 
you let me in, Fred ^. " 

Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm ofF. He 
was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His 
niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he came. 
So did the plump sister, when she came. So did every one, 
when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonder- 
ful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness! 

But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early 
there ! If he could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit 
coming late ! That was the thing he had set his heart upon. 

And he did it; yes, he did ! The clock struck nine. No Bob. 
A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and 
a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, 
that he might see him come into the tank. 

His hat was oflF before he opened the door; his comforter, 
too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, 
as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock. 

"Hallo! " growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice as near 
as he could feign it. "What do you mean by coming here at 
this time of day.^" 

"I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. "I am behind my time." 

"You are?" repeated Scrooge. "Yes. I think you are. 
Step this way, sir, if you please." 

"It's only once a year, sir," pleaded Bob, appearing from 
the tank. "It shall not be repeated. I was making rather 
merry yesterday, sir." 

"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge; "I am 



THE END OF IT 99 

not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And there- 
fore/' he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving Bob 
such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the tank 
again, — "and therefore, I am about to raise your salary! " 

Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had 
a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding 
him, and calling to the people in the court for help and a 
strait-waistcoat.'* 

"A Merry Christmas, Bob! '' said Scrooge, with an earnest- 
ness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the 
back. *'A merrier Christma*s, Bob, my good fellow, than I 
have given you for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and 
endeavor to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss 
your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of 
smoking bishop. Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another 
coal scuttle before you dot another i. Bob Cratchit!" 

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and in- 
finitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a 
second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, 
and as good a man as the good old city knew, or any other 
good old city, town, or borough in the good old world. Some 
people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them 
laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know 
that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which 
some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; 
and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he 
thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes 
in grins as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own 
heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him. 

He had no further intercourse with spirits, but lived 
upon the total abstinence principle ever afterwards; and it 
was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas 
well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that 
be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim ob- 
served, God bless Us, Every One! 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 




Title-page of the First Edition of " The Cricket on The Hearth " 



THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

A FAIRY TALE OF HOME 



CHIRP THE FIRST 

The Kettle began it! Don^t tell me what Mrs. Peerybingle 
said. I know better. Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it on 
record to the end of time that she couldn't say which of them 
began it; but I say the Kettle did. I ought to know, I hope.f^ 
The Kettle began it, full five minutes by the little waxy-faced 
Dutch clock in the corner, before the Cricket uttered a chirp. 

As if the clock hadn't finished striking, and the convulsive 
little Haymaker at the top of it, jerking away right and left 
with a scythe in front of a Moorish Palace, hadn't mowed 
down half an acre of imaginary grass before the Cricket 
joined in at all! 

Why, I am not naturally positive. Every one knows that 
I wouldn't set my own opinion against the opinion of Mrs. 
Peerybingle, unless I were quite sure, on any account what- 
ever. Nothing should induce me. But this is a question of 
fact. And the fact is, that the Kettle began it, at least five 
minutes before the Cricket gave any sign of being in existence. 
Contradict me, and I'll say ten. 

Let me narrate exactly how it happened. I should have 
proceeded to do so, in my very first word, but for this plain 
consideration: if I am to tell a story I must begin at the be- 
ginning; and how is it possible to begin at the beginning, 
without beginning at the Kettle.^ 

It appeared as if there were a sort of match, or trial of 
skill, you must understand, between the Kettle and the 

103 



I04 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

Cricket. And this is what led to it, and how it came 
about. 

Mrs. Peerybingle, going out into the raw twilight, and 
clicking over the wet stones in a pair of pattens ^ that worked 
innumerable rough impressions of the first proposition in 
Euclid all about the yard, — Mrs. Peerybingle filled the 
Kettle at the water butt. Presently returning, less the pattens 
(and a good deal less, for they were tall, and Mrs. Peery- 
bingle was but short), she set the Kettle on the fire. In doing 
which she lost her temper, or mislaid it for an instant; for, 
the water being uncomfortably cold, and in that slippy, 
slushy, sleety sort of state wherein it seems to penetrate 
through every kind of substance, patten rings included, had 
laid hold of Mrs. Peerybingle's toes, and even splashed her 
legs. And when we keep ourselves particularly neat in point 
of stockings, we find this, for the moment, hard to bear. 

Besides, the Kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It 
wouldn't allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it 
wouldn't hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs 
of coal; it would lean forward with a drunken air, and dribble, 
a very Idiot of a Kettle, on the hearth. It was quarrelsome, 
and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. To sum up all, 
the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned 
topsy-turvy, and then with an ingenious pertinacity deserving 
of a better cause, dived sideways in — down to the very 
bottom of the Kettle. And the hull of the Royal George *" 
has never made half the monstrous resistance to coming out 
of the water, which the lid of that Kettle employed against 
Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again. 

It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then; carry- 
ing its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout 
pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle, as if it said, **I 
won't boil. Nothing shall induce me!" 

But Mrs. Peerybingle, with restored good humor, dusted 
her chubby little hands against each other, and sat down 
before the Kettle, laughing. Meantime, the jolly blaze up- 



CHIRP THE FIRST I05 

rose and fell, flashing and gleaming on the little Haymaker 
at the top of the Dutch clock, until one might have thought 
he stood stock-still before the Moorish Palace, and nothing 
was in motion but the flame. 

He was on the move, however; and had his spasms, two 
to the second, all right and regular. But his suflFerings when 
the clock was going to strike were frightful to behold; and 
when a cuckoo looked out of a trapdoor in the Palace, and 
gave note six times, it shook him, each time, like a spectral 
voice, — or like a something wiry, plucking at his legs. 

It was not until a violent commotion and a whirring noise 
among the weights and ropes below him had quite subsided, 
that this terrified Haymaker became himself again. Nor 
was he startled without reason; for these rattling, bony 
skeletons of clocks are very disconcerting in their operation, 
and I wonder very much how any set of men, but most of all 
how Dutchmen, can have had a liking to invent them. 
There is a popular belief that Dutchmen love broad cases 
and much clothing for their own lower selves; and they might 
know better than to leave their clocks so very lank and un- 
protected, surely. 

Now it was, you observe, that the Kettle began to spend 
the evening. Now it was, that the Kettle, growing mellow 
and musical, began to have irrepressible gurglings in its 
throat, and to indulge in short vocal snorts, which it checked 
in the bud, as if it hadn^t quite made up its mind, yet, to be 
good company. Now it was, that after two or three such vain 
attempts to stifle its convivial sentiments, it threw off all 
moroseness, all reserve, and burst into a stream of song so 
cozy and hilarious, as never maudlin nightingale yet formed 
the least idea of. 

So plain, too! Bless you, you might have understood it 
like a book, — better than some books you and I could name, 
perhaps. With its warm breath gushing forth in a light cloud 
which merrily and gracefully ascended a few feet, then hung 
about the chimney corner as its own domestic heaven, it 



Io6 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

trolled Its song with that strong energy of cheerfulness that its 
iron body hummed and stirred upon the fire; and the lid 
itself, the recently rebellious lid, — such is the influence of a 
bright example, — performed a sort of jig, and clattered like 
a deaf and dumb young cymbal that had never known the 
use of its twin brother. 

That this song of the Kettle's was a song of invitation and 
welcome to somebody out of doors, to somebody at that 
moment coming on, towards the snug small home and the 
crisp fire, there is no doubt whatever. Mrs. Peerybingle 
knew it, perfectly, as she sat musing before the hearth. It's 
a dark night, sang the Kettle, and the rotten leaves are lying 
by the way; and, above, all is mist and darkness, and, below, 
all is mire and clay; and there's only one relief in all the sad 
and murky air; and I don't know that it is one, for it's nothing 
but a glare; of deep and angry crimson, where the sun and 
wind together; set a brand upon the clouds for being guilty 
of such weather; and the widest open country is a long dull 
streak of black; and there's hoarfrost on the finger post, 
and thaw upon the track; and the ice it isn't water, and the 
water isn't free; and you couldn't say that anything is what 
it ought to be; but he's coming, coming, coming! — 

And here, if you like, the Cricket did chime in! with a^ 
Chirrup, Chirrup, Chirrup of such magnitude, by way of 
chorus; with a voice so astoundingly disproportionate to its 
size, as compared with the Kettle (size! you couldn't see it!), 
that if it had then and there burst itself like an overcharged 
gun, if it had fallen a victim on the spot, and chirruped its 
little body into fifty pieces, it would have seemed a natural 
and inevitable consequence, for which it had expressly labored. 

The Kettle had had the last of its solo performance. It 
persevered with undiminished ardor; but the Cricket took 
first fiddle and kept it. Good heaven, how it chirped! Its 
shrill, sharp, piercing voice resounded through the house, 
and seemed to twinkle in the outer darkness like a star. 
There was an indescribable little thrill and tremble in it at 



CHIRP THE FIRST 107 

Its loudest, which suggested its being carried ofF its legs, and 
made to leap again, by its own intense enthusiasm. Yet they 
went very well together, the Cricket and the Kettle. The 
burden of the song was still the same; and louder, louder, 
louder still, they sang it in their emulation. 

The fair little listener — for fair she was, and young, 
though something of what is called the dumpling shape; 
but I don't myself object to that — lighted a candle, glanced 
at the Haymaker on the top of the clock, who was getting 
in a pretty average crop of minutes; and looked out of the 
window, where she saw nothing, owing to the darkness, but 
her own face imaged in the glass. And my opinion is (and 
so would yours have been), that she might have looked a 
long way and seen nothing half so agreeable. When she 
came back, and sat down in her former seat, the Cricket and 
the Kettle were still keeping it up, with a perfect fury of 
competition. The Kettle's weak side clearly being, that he 
didn't know when he was beat. 

There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp, 
chirp, chirp! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum — m 
— m! Kettle making play in the distance, like a great top. 
Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket round the corner. Hum, hum, 
hum — m — m! Kettle sticking to him in his own way; no 
idea of giving in. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket fresher than 
ever. Hum, hum, hum — m — m! Kettle slow and steady. 
Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket going in to finish him. Hum, 
hum, hum — m — m! Kettle not to be finished. Until at 
last, they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-skurry, 
helter-skelter, of the match, that whether the Kettle chirped 
and the Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the 
Kettle hummed, or they both chirped and both hummed, it 
would have taken a clearer head than yours or mine to have 
decided with anything like certainty. But of this there is 
no doubt: that the Kettle and the Cricket, at one and the 
same moment, and by some power of amalgamation best 
known to themselves, sent, each, his fireside song of comfort 



lo8 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

streaming into a ray of the candle that shone out through ■ 
the window, and a long way down the lane. And this light, 
bursting on a certain person who, on the instant, approached 
towards it through the gloom, expressed the whole thing to 
him, literally in a twinkling, and cried, ** Welcome home, old 
fellow! Welcome home, my boy!" 

This end attained, the Kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, 
and was taken ofF the fire. Mrs. Peerybingle then went 
running to the door, where, what with the wheels of a cart, 
the tramp of a horse, the voice of a man, the tearing in and 
out of an excited dog, and the surprising and mysterious 
appearance of a baby, there was soon the very What's-his- 
name to pay. 

Where the baby came from, or how Mrs. Peerybingle got 
hold of it in that flash of time, / don't know. But a live 
baby there was, in Mrs. Peerybingle's arms; and a pretty 
tolerable amount of pride she seemed to have in it, when 
she was drawn gently to the fire, by a sturdy figure of a man, 
much taller and much older than herself, who had to stoop 
a long way down to kiss her. But she was worth the trouble. 
Six foot six, with the lumbago, might have done it. 

**0h goodness, John!" said Mrs. P. "What a state you're 
in with the weather!" 

He was something the worse for it undeniably. The 
thick mist hung in clots upon his eyelashes like candied 
thaw; and between the fog and fire together there were rain- 
bows in his very whiskers. 

*'Why, you see. Dot," John made answer, slowly, as he 
unrolled a shawl from about his throat, and warmed his 
hands; "it — it an't exactly summer weather. So, no won- 
der." 

"I wish you wouldn't call me Dot, John. I don't like it," 
said Mrs. Peerybingle, pouting in a way that clearly showed 
she did like it, very much. 

"Why what else are you.?" returned John, looking down 
upon her with a smile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze 



CHIRP THE FIRST I09 

as his huge hand and arm could give. "A dot and" — here 
he glanced at the baby — "a dot and carry — I won't say 
it, for fear I should spoil it; but I was very near a joke. I 
don't know as ever I was nearer." 

He was often near to something or other very clever, by 
his own account, this lumbering, slow, honest John; this 
John so heavy, but so light of spirit; so rough upon the sur- 
face, but so gentle at the core; so dull without, so quick 
within; so stolid, but so good! O Mother Nature, give thy 
children the true poetry of heart that hid itself in this poor 
Carrier's breast, — he was but a Carrier by the way, — and 
we can bear to have them talking prose, and leading lives of 
prose; and bear to bless thee for their company! 

It was pleasant to see Dot, with her little figure and her 
baby in her arms, a very doll of a baby, glancing with a 
coquettish thoughtfulness at the fire, and inclining her 
delicate little head just enough on one side to let it rest in 
an odd, half-natural, half- affected, wholly nestling and 
agreeable manner, on the great, rugged figure of the Carrier. 
It was pleasant to see him, with his tender awkwardness, 
endeavoring to adapt his rude support to her slight need, 
and make his burly middle-age a leaning staff not inappro- 
priate to her blooming youth. It was pleasant to observe 
how Tilly Slowboy, waiting in the background for the baby, 
took special cognizance (though in her earliest teens) of 
this grouping; and stood with her mouth and eyes wide open, 
and her head thrust forward, taking it in as if it were air. 
Nor was it less agreeable to observe how John the Carrier, 
reference being made by Dot to the aforesaid baby, checked 
his hand when on the point of touching the infant, as if he 
thought he might crack it; and bending down, surveyed it 
from a safe distance, with a kind of puzzled pride, such as an 
amiable mastiff might be supposed to show, if he found him- 
self, one day, the father of a young canary. 

**An't he beautiful, John.f* Don't he look precious in his 
sleep.?" 



no THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

"Very precious," said John. "Very much so. He gen- 
erally is asleep, an't he?" 

*^Lor, John! Good gracious, no!" 

''Oh," said John, pondering. "I thought his eyes was 
generally shut. Halloa!" 

''Goodness, John, how you startle one!" 

"It an't right for him to turn 'em up in that way," said 
the astonished Carrier, "is it.f^ See how he's winking with 
both of 'em at once! and look at his mouth! Why, he's 
gasping like a gold and silver fish!" 

"You don't deserve to be a father, you don't," said Dot, 
with all the dignity of an experienced matron. "But how 
should you know what little complaints children are troubled 
with, John? You wouldn't so much as know their names, 
you stupid fellow." And when she had turned the baby 
over on her left arm, and had slapped its back as a restora- 
tive, she pinched her husband's ear, laughing. 

"No," said John, pulling off his outer coat. "It's very 
true. Dot. I don't know much about it. I only know that 
I've been fighting pretty stiffly with the wind to-night. It's 
been blowing northeast, straight into the cart, the whole 
way home." 

"Poor old man, so it has!" cried Mrs. Peerybingle, in- 
stantly becoming very active. "Here! take the precious 
darling, Tilly, while I make myself of some use. Bless it, 
I could smother it with kissing it, I could! Hie then, good 
dog! Hie, Boxer, boy! Only let me make the tea first, 
John; and then I'll help you with the parcels, like a busy bee. 
'How doth the little' — and all the rest of it, you know, 
John. Did you ever learn 'How doth the little,' when you 
went to school, John?" 

"Not to quite know it," John returned. "I was very near 
it once. But I should only have spoiled it, I dare say." 

"Ha ha!" laughed Dot. She had the blithest little laugh 
you ever heard. "What a dear old darling of a dunce you 
are, John, to be sure!" 



CHIRP THE FIRST III 

Not at all disputing this position, John went out to see 
that the boy with the lantern, which had been dancing to 
and fro before the door and window, like a will-of-the-wisp, 
took due care of the horse; who was fatter than you would 
quite believe, if I gave you his measure, and so old that his 
birthday was lost in the mists of antiquity. Boxer, feeling 
that his attentions were due to the family in general, and 
must be impartially distributed, dashed in and out with 
bewildering inconstancy; now, describing a circle of short 
* barks round the horse, where he was being rubbed down at 
the stable door; now, feigning to make savage rushes at his 
mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; 
now, eliciting a shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nurs- 
ing chair near the fire, by the unexpected application of his 
moist nose to her countenance; now, exhibiting an obtrusive 
interest in the baby; now, going round and round upon the 
hearth, and lying down as if he had established himself for 
the night; now, getting up again, and taking that nothing 
of a fag-end of a tail of his out into the weather, as if he had 
just remembered an appointment, and was off, at a round 
trot, to keep it. 

** There! There's the teapot, ready on the hob!" said 
Dot; as briskly busy as a child at play at keeping house. 
*' And there's the cold knuckle of ham; and there's the butter; 
and there's the crusty loaf, and all! Here's a clothes basket 
for the small parcels, John, if you've got any there. Where 
are you, John.? Don't let the dear child fall under the grate 
Tilly, whatever you do!" 

It may be noted of Miss Slowboy, in spite of her rejecting 
the caution with some vivacity, that she had a rare and sur- 
prising talent for getting this baby into difficulties; and had 
several times imperiled its short life, in a quiet way peculiarly 
her own. She was of a spare and straight shape, this young 
lady, insomuch that her garments appeared to be in constant 
danger of sliding off those sharp pegs, her shoulders, on which 
they were loosely hung. Her costume was remarkable for 



112 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

the partial development, on all possible occasions, of some 
flannel vestment of a singular structure; also for affording 
glimpses, in the region of the back, of a corset, or pair of 
stays, in color a dead green. Being always in a state of 
gaping admiration at everything, and absorbed, besides, in 
the perpetual contemplation of her mistress's perfections 
and the baby's. Miss Slowboy, in her little errors of judgment, 
may be said to have done equal honor to her head and to her 
heart; and though these did less honor to the baby's head, 
which they were the occasional means of bringing into con- 
tact with deal doors, dressers, stair rails, bedposts, and 
other foreign substances, still they were the honest results 
of Tilly Slowboy's constant astonishment at finding herself 
so kindly treated, and installed in such a comfortable home. 
For the maternal and paternal Slowboy were alike unknown 
to fame, and Tilly had been bred by public charity, a found- 
ling; which word, though only differing from fondling by 
one vowel's length, is very different in meaning, and ex- 
presses quite another thing. 

To have seen little Mrs. Peerybingle come back with her 
husband, tugging at the clothes basket, and making the 
most strenuous exertions to do nothing at all (for he carried 
it), would have amused you almost as much as it amused 
him. It may have entertained the Cricket too, for anything 
I know; but, certainly, it now began to chirp again, vehe- 
mently. 

^'Heyday!" said John, in his slow way. ^'It's merrier 
than ever to-night, I .think." 

"And it's sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always 
has done so. To have a Cricket on the Hearth is the luckiest 
thing in all the world!" 

John looked at her as if he had very nearly got the thought 
into his head that she was his Cricket in Chief, and he quite 
agreed with her. But it was probably one of his narrow 
escapes, for he said nothing. 

"The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John, was 



CHIRP THE FIRST 1 13 

on that night when you brought me home — when you 
brought me to my new home here; its Httle mistress. Nearly 
a year ago. You recollect, John.^^' 

Oh, yes. John remembered. I should think so! 

"Its chirp was such a welcome to me! It seemed so full of 
promise and encouragement. It seemed to say you would 
be kind and gentle with me, and would not expect (I had a 
fear of that, John, then) to find an old head on the shoulders 
of your foolish little wife.'' 

John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then 
the head, as though he would have said. No, no; he had had 
no such expectation; he had been quite content to take them 
as they were. And really he had reason. They were very 
comely. 

"It spoke the truth, John, when it seemed to say so: for 
you have ever been, I am sure, the best, the most considerate, 
the most affectionate of husbands to me. This has been a 
happy home, John; and I love the Cricket for its sake!" 

"Why, so do I, then," said the Carrier. "So do I, Dot." 

"I love it for the many times I have heard it, and the many 
thoughts its harmless music has given me. Sometimes, in 
the twilight, when I have felt a little solitary and down- 
hearted, John, — before baby was here, to keep me company 
and make the house gay, — when I have thought how lonely 
you would be if I should die; how lonely I should be, if I 
could know that you had lost me, dear; its Chirp, Chirp, 
Chirp, upon the hearth, has seemed to tell me of another 
little voice, so sweet, so very dear to me, before whose coming 
sound my trouble vanished like a dream. And when I used to 
fear — I did fear once, John; I was very young, you know — 
that ours might prove to be an ill-assorted marriage, I being 
such a child, and you more like my guardian than my hus- 
band; and that you might not, however hard you tried, be 
able to learn to love me, as you hoped and prayed you might; 
its Chirp, Chirp, Chirp has cheered me up again, and filled 
me with new trust and confidence. I was thinking of these 



114 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

things to-night, dear, when I sat expecting you; and I love 
the Cricket for their sake!" 

''And so do I/' repeated John. ''But, Dot! / hope and 
pray that I might learn to love you? How you talk! I had 
learned that, long before I brought you here, to be the 
Cricket's little mistress. Dot!" 

She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up 
at him with an agitated face, as if she would have told him 
something. Next moment, she was down upon her knees 
before the basket; speaking in a sprightly voice, and busy 
with the parcels. 

"There are not many of them to-night, John, but I saw 
some goods behind the cart, just now; and though they give 
more trouble, perhaps, still they pay as well: so we have no 
reason to grumble, have we.^ Besides, you have been deliv- 
ering, I dare say, as you came along.?" 

"Oh, yes," John said. "A good many." 

"Why, what's this round box.f^ Heart alive, John, it's a 
wedding cake!" 

"Leave a woman alone to find out that," said John ad- 
miringly. "Now a man would never have thought of it! 
Whereas, it's my belief that if you was to pack a wedding 
cake up in a tea chest, or a turn-up bedstead, or a pickled 
salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a woman would be sure 
to find it out directly. Yes; I called for it at the pastry 
cook's." 

"And it weighs I don't know what, — whole hundred-" 
weights!" cried Dot, making a great demonstration of trying 
to lift it. "Whose is it, John. f^ Where is it going.?" 

"Read the writing on the other side," said John. 

"Why, John! My goodness, John!" 

"Ah! who'd have thought it.?" John returned. 

"You never mean to say," pursued Dot, sitting on the 
floor and shaking her head at him, "that it's GruflF and 
Tackleton,'* the toymaker.?" 

John nodded. 



CHIRP THE FIRST I15 

Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least. Not in 
assent, — in dumb and pitying amazement; screwing up her 
lips, the while, with all their little force (they were never 
made for screwing up; I am clear of that), and looking the 
good Carrier through and through, in her abstraction. Miss 
Slowboy, in the meantime, who had a mechanical power of 
reproducing scraps of current conversation for the delectation 
of the baby, with all the sense struck out of them, and all the 
nouns changed into the plural number, inquired aloud of that 
young creature, Was it GrufFs and Tackletons the toymakers, 
then, and Would it call at pastry cooks for wedding cakes, 
and Did its mothers know the boxes when its fathers brought 
them home; and so on. 

**And that is really to come about!" said Dot. "Why, 
she and I were girls at school together, John." 

He might have been thinking of her, or nearly thinking 
of her, perhaps, as she was in that same schooltime. He 
looked upon her with a thoughtful pleasure, but he made no 
answer. 

**And he's as old! As unlike her! — Why, how many 
years older than you is GrufF and Tackleton, John.f^" 

"How many more cups of tea shall I drink to-night at 
one sitting than GrufF and Tackleton ever took in four, I 
wonder.?" replied John good-humoredly, as he drew a chair 
to the round table, and began at the cold ham. "As to eating, 
I eat but little; but that little I enjoy. Dot." 

Even this, his usual sentiment at mealtimes, one of his 
innocent delusions (for his appetite was always obstinate, 
and flatly contradicted him), awoke no smile in the face of 
his little wife, who stood among the parcels, pushing the 
cake box slowly from her with her foot, and never once 
looked, though her eyes were cast down too, upon the dainty 
shoe she generally was so mindful of. Absorbed in thought, 
she stood there, heedless alike of the tea and John (although 
he called to her, and rapped the table with his knife to startle 
her), until he rose and touched her on the arm; when she 



Il6 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

looked at him for a moment, and hurried to her place behind 
the tea board, laughing at her negligence. But not as she 
had laughed before. The manner and the music were quite 
changed. 

The Cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room was 
not so cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it. 

^'So these are all the parcels, are they, John.?" she said, 
breaking a long silence, which the honest Carrier had devoted 
to the practical illustration of one part of his favorite sen- 
timent, — certainly enjoying what he ate, if it couldn't be 
admitted that he ate but little. ''So these are all the parcels; 
are they, John ? " 

"That's all," said John. "Why — no — I" — laying 
down his knife and fork, and taking a long breath, "I declare; 
I've clean forgotten the old gentleman!" 

"The old gentleman.?" 

"In the cart," said John. "He was asleep, among the 
straw, the last time I saw him. I've very nearly remembered 
him, twice, since I came in; but he went out of my head 
again. Halloa! Yahip there! Rouse up! That's my 
hearty!" 

John said these latter words outside the door, whither he 
had hurried with the candle in his hand. 

Miss Slowboy, conscious of some mysterious reference to 
The Old Gentleman, and connecting in her mystified imag- 
ination certain associations of a religious nature with the 
phrase, was so disturbed, that hastily rising from the low 
chair by the fire to seek protection near the skirt of her mis- 
tress, and coming into contact as she crossed the doorway 
with an ancient Stranger, she instinctively made a charge or 
butt at him with the only oflPensive instrument within her 
reach. This instrument happening to be the baby, great 
commotion and alarm ensued, which the sagacity of Boxer 
rather tended to increase; for that good dog, more thoughtful 
than his master, had, it seemed, been watching the old gentle- 
man in his sleep, lest he should walk off with a few young 



CHIRP THE FIRST II7 

poplar trees that were tied up behind the cart; and he still 
attended on him very closely, worrying his gaiters in fact, 
and making dead sets at the buttons. 

"You're such an undeniably good sleeper, sir," said John, 
when tranquillity was restored (in the meantime the old 
gentleman had stood, bareheaded and motionless, in the 
center of the room), ''that I have half a mind to ask you where 
the other six are; only that would be a joke, and I know I 
should spoil it. Very near, though," murmured the Carrier, 
with a chuckle; '"very near!" 

The Stranger, who had long white hair, good features, 
singularly bold and well defined for an old man, and dark, 
bright, penetrating eyes, looked round with a smile, and 
saluted the Carrier's wife by gravely inclining his head. 

His garb was very quaint and odd, — a long, long way be- 
hind the time. Its hue was brown, all over. In his hand he 
held a great brown club or walking stick; and striking this 
upon the floor, it fell asunder, and became a chair. On which 
he sat down quite composedly. 

"There!" said the Carrier, turning to his wife. "That's 
the way I found him, sitting by the roadside! Upright as a 
milestone. And almost as deaf." 

"Sitting in the open air, John.?" 

"In the open air," replied the Carrier, "just at dusk. 
' Carriage paid,'~ he said; and gave me eighteen-pence. Then 
he got in. And there he is." 

"He's going, John, I think!" 

Not at all. He was only going to speak. 

"If you please, I was to be left till called for," said the 
Stranger mildly. "Don't mind me." 

With that he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large 
pockets, and a book from another, and leisurely began to read. 
Making no more of Boxer than if he had been a house lamb! 

The Carrier and his wife exchanged a look of perplexity. 
The Stranger raised his head; and, glancing from the latter to 
the former, said, — 



Il8 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

"Your daughter, my good friend?" 

"Wife!" returned John. 

"Niece?" said the Stranger. 

"Wife!" roared John. 

"Indeed?" observed the Stranger. "Surely? Very 
young!" 

He quietly turned over and resumed his reading. But be- 
fore he could have read two lines, he again interrupted him- 
self, to say: — 

"Baby yours?" 

John gave him a gigantic nod, equivalent to an answer in 
the affirmative, delivered through a speaking trumpet. 

"Girl?" 

"Bo-o-oy!" roared John. 

"Also very young, eh?" 

Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in. "Two months and 
three da-ays. Vaccinated just six weeks ago-o! Took very 
fine-ly! Considered by the doctor a remarkably beautiful 
chi-ild! Equal to the general run of children at five months 
o-old! Takes notice in a way quite won-der-ful! May seem 
impossible to you, but feels his legs al-ready!" 

Here, the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking 
these short sentences into the old man's ear, until her pretty 
face was crimsoned, held up the baby before him as a stub- 
born and triumphant fact; while Tilly Slowboy, with a me- 
lodious cry of "Ketcher, Ketcher," — which sounded like 
some unknown words, adapted to a popular sneeze, — per- 
formed some cowlike gambols around that all unconscious 
innocent. 

"Hark! He's called for, sure enough," said John. "There's 
somebody at the door. Open it, Tilly." 

Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from 
without; being a primitive sort of door, with a latch that any 
one could lift if he chose, — and a good many people did 
choose, for all kinds of neighbors liked to have a cheerful 
word or two with the Carrier, though he was no great talker 



CHIRP THE FIRST 1 19 

himself. Being opened, it gave admission to a little, meager, 
thoughtful, dingy-faced man, who seemed to have made him- 
self a great coat from the sackcloth covering of some old box; 
for when he turned to shut the door, and keep the weather 
out, he disclosed upon the back of that garment the inscrip- 
tion G & T in large black capitals. Also the word GLASS in 
bold* characters. 

"Good evening, John!'' said the little man. "Good 
evening, mum. Good evening, Tilly. Good evening, Unbe- 
known! How's baby, mum.? Boxer's pretty well, I hope.?" 

"All thriving, Caleb," replied Dot. "I am sure you need 
only look at the dear child, for one, to know that." 

"And I'm sure I need only look at you for another," said 
Caleb. 

He didn't look at her, though: he had a wandering and 
thoughtful eye which seemed to be always projecting itself 
into some other time and place, no matter what he said; a 
description which will equally apply to his voice. 

"Or at John for another," said Caleb. "Or at Tilly, as far 
as that goes. Or certainly at Boxer." 

"Busy, just now, Caleb?" asked the Carrier. 

"Why, pretty well, John," he returned, with the distraught 
air of a man who was casting about for the philosopher's 
stone, at least. "Pretty much so. There's rather a run on 
Noah's arks at present. I could have wished to have im- 
proved on the family, but I don't see how it's to be done at 
the price. It would be a satisfaction to one's mind, to make 
it clearer which was Shems and Hams, and which was wives. 
Flies an't on that scale, neither, as compared with elephants, 
you know! Ah, well! Have you got anything in the parcel 
line for me, John .? " 

The Carrier put his hand into a pocket of the coat he had 
taken off; and brought out, carefully preserved in moss and 
paper, a tiny flowerpot. 

"There it is! " he said, adjusting it with great care. "Not 
so much as a leaf damaged. Full of buds!" 



I20 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

Caleb's dull eye brightened, as he took it, and thanked him. 

"Dear, Caleb," said the Carrier. "Very dear at this 
season." 

"Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, whatever it 
cost," returned the little man. "Anything else, John?" 

"A small box," replied the Carrier. "Here you are! " 

" ^For Caleb Plummer,' " said the little man, spelling out 
the direction. "*With cash.' With cash, John.? I don't 
think it's for me." 

"With care," returned the Carrier, looking over his shoul- 
der. "Where do you make out cash?" 

"Oh! To be sure! "said Caleb. "It's all right. With care! 
Yes, yes; that's mine. It might have been with cash, indeed, 
if my dear boy in the golden South Americas had lived, John. 
You loved him like a son; didn't you? You needn't say you 
did. / know, of course. ' Caleb Plummer. With care.' Yes, 
yes, it's all right. It's a box of dolls' eyes for my daughter's 
work. I wish it was her own sight in a box, John." 

"I wish it was, or could be!" cried the Carrier. 

"Thankee," said the little man. "You speak very hearty. 
To think that she should never see the dolls, — and them a 
staring at her, so bold, all day long! That's where it cuts. 
What's the damage, John?" 

"I'll damage you," said John, "if you inquire. Dot! Very 
near?" 

"Well! it's like you to say so," observed the little man. 
"It's your kind way. Let me see. I think that's all." 

"I think not," said the Carrier. "Try again." 

"Something for our governor, eh?" said Caleb, after 
pondering a little while. "To be sure. That's what I came 
for; but my head's so running on them arks and things! 
He hasn't been here, has he?" 

"Not he," returned the Carrier. "He's too busy, court- 
ing." 

"He's coming round though," said Caleb; "for he told 
me to keep on the near side of the road going home, and it 



CHIRP THE FIRST 121 

was ten to one he'd take me up. I had better go, by the 
bye. — You couldn't have the goodness to let me pinch 
Boxer's tail, mum, for half a moment, could you?" 

"Why, Caleb! what a question!" 

"Oh, never mind, mum," said the little man. "He 
mightn't like it, perhaps. There's a small order just come 
in for barking dogs; and I should wish to go as close to 
natur' as I could for sixpence. That's all. Never mind, 
mum." 

It happened, opportunely, that Boxer, without receiving 
the proposed stimulus, began to bark with great zeal. But 
as this implied the approach of some new visitor, Caleb, 
postponing his study from the life to a more convenient 
season, shouldered the round box, and took a hurried leave. 
He might have spared himself the trouble, for he met the 
visitor upon the threshold. 

"Oh! You are here, are you.^ Wait a bit. I'll take you 
home. John Peerybingle, my service to you. More of my 
service to your pretty wife. Handsomer every day! Better, 
too, if possible! And younger," mused the speaker in a low 
voice; "that's the devil of it!" 

"I should be astonished at your paying compliments, 
Mr. Tackleton," said Dot, not with the best grace in the 
world, "but for your condition." 

"You know all about it then?" 

"I have got myself to believe it somehow," said Dot. 

"After a hard struggle, I suppose?" 

"Very." 

Tackleton the toy merchant, pretty generally known as 
Gruff and Tackleton, — for that was the firm, though Gruff 
had been bought out long ago; only leaving his name, and 
as some said his nature, according to its dictionary meaning, 
in the business, — Tackleton the toy merchant was a man 
whose vocation had been quite misunderstood by his parents 
and guardians. If they had made him a money lender, 
or a sharp attorney, or a sheriff's officer, or a broker, he 



122 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

might have sown his discontented oats in his youth, and, 
after having the full run of himself in ill-natured transactions, 
might have turned out amiable at last, for the sake of a little 
freshness and novelty. But, cramped and chafing in the 
peaceable pursuit of toymaking, he was a domestic ogre, 
who had been living on children all his life, and was their 
implacable enemy. He despised all toys; wouldn't have 
bought one for the world; delighted, in his malice, to insin- 
uate grim expressions into the faces of brown-paper farmers 
who drove pigs to market, bellmen who advertised lost 
lawyers' consciences, movable old ladies who darned stock- 
ings or carved pies; and other like samples of his stock in 
trade. In appalling masks; hideous, hairy, red-eyed jacks 
in boxes; vampire kites; demoniacal tumblers who wouldn't 
lie down, and were perpetually flying forward, to stare in- 
fants out of countenance, his soul perfectly reveled. They 
were his only relief, and safety valve. He was great in such 
inventions. Anything suggestive of a pony nightmare was 
delicious to him. He had even lost money (and he took to 
that toy very kindly) by getting up goblin slides for magic 
lanterns, whereon the powers of darkness were depicted 
as a sort of supernatural shellfish, with human faces. In 
intensifying the portraiture of giants, he had sunk quite a 
little capital; and, though no painter himself, he could in- 
dicate, for the instruction of his artists, with a piece of chalk, 
a certain furtive leer for the countenances of those monsters, 
which was safe to destroy the peace of mind of any young 
gentleman between the ages of six and eleven, for the whole 
Christmas or midsummer vacation. 

What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in other 
things. You may easily suppose, therefore, that within the 
great green cape, which reached down to the calves of his 
legs, there was buttoned up to the chin an uncommonly 
pleasant fellow; and that he was about as choice a spirit, 
and as agreeable a companion, as ever stood in a pair of 
bull-headed looking boots with mahogany-colored tops. 



CHIRP THE FIRST 1 23 

Still, Tackleton, the toy merchant, was going to be married. 
In spite of all this, he was going to be married. And to a 
young wife too, a beautiful young wife. 

He didn't look much like a bridegroom, as he stood in the 
Carrier's kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw 
in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, 
and his hands tucked down into the bottoms of his pockets, 
and his whole sarcastic, ill-conditioned self peering out of 
one little corner of one little eye, like the concentrated es- 
sence of any number of ravens. But a bridegroom he de- 
signed to be. 

''In three days' time. Next Thursday. The last day of 
the first month in the year. That's my wedding day," said 
Tackleton. 

Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open, and 
one eye nearly shut; and that the one eye nearly shut was 
always the expressive eye? I don't think I did. 

"That's my wedding day!" said Tackleton, rattling his 
money. 

''Why, it's our wedding day, too," exclaimed the Carrier. 

"Ha, ha!" laughed Tackleton. "Odd! You're just such 
another couple. Just!" 

The indignation of Dot at this presumptuous assertion is 
not to be described. What next? His imagination would 
compass the possibility of just such another baby, perhaps. 
The man was mad. 

"I say! A word with you," murmured Tackleton, nudging 
the Carrier with his elbow, and taking him a little apart. 
"You'll come to the wedding? We're in the same boat, you 
know." 

"How in the same boat?" inquired the Carrier. 

"A little disparity, you know," said Tackleton, with 
another nudge. "Come and spend an evening with us, 
beforehand." 

"Why?" demanded John, astonished at this pressing 
hospitality, 



124 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

"Why?" returned the other. "That's a new way of re- 
ceiving an invitation. Why, for pleasure — sociability, you 
know, and all that." 

"I thought you were never sociable," said John, in his 
plain way. 

"Tchah! It's of no use to be anything but free with you, 
I see," said Tackleton. "Why, then, the truth is, you have 
a — what tea-drinking people call a sort of a comfortable 
appearance together, you and your wife. We know better, 
you know, but" — 

"No, we don't know better," interposed John. "What 
are you talking about?" 

"Well! We dont know better, then," said Tackleton. 
"We'll agree that we don't. As you like; what does it 
matter? I was going to say, as you have that sort of appear- 
ance, your company will produce a favorable effect on Mrs. 
Tackleton that will be. And though I don't think your good 
lady's very friendly to me in this matter, still she can't help 
herself from falling into my views, for there's a compactness 
and coziness of appearance about her that always tells, even 
in an indifferent case. You'll say you'll come?" 

"We have arranged to keep our wedding day (as far as 
that goes) at home," said John. "We have made the promise 
to ourselves these six months. We think, you see, that 
home" — 

"Bah! what's home?" cried Tackleton. "Four walls and 
a ceiling! (Why don't you kill that Cricket? / would! I 
always do. I hate their noise.) There are four walls and a 
ceiling at my house. Come to me!" 

"You kill your crickets, eh?" said John. 

"Scrunch 'em, sir," returned the other, setting his heel 
heavily on the floor. "You'll say you'll come? It's as much 
your interest as mine, you know, that the women should 
persuade each other that they're quiet and contented, and 
couldn't be better off. I know their way. Whatever one 
woman says, another woman is determined to clinch, always. 



CHIRP THE FIRST 1 25 

There's that spirit of emulation among 'em, sir, that If your 
wife says to my wife, Tm the happiest woman In the world, 
and mine's the best husband In the world, and I dote on 
him,' my wife will say the same to yours, or more, and half 
believe It." 

''Do you mean to say she don't, then?" asked the Carrier. 

''Don't!" cried Tackleton, with a short, sharp laugh. 
"Don't what?" 

The Carrier had some faint Idea of adding, "Dote upon 
you." But happening to meet the half-closed eye, as It 
twinkled upon him over the turned-up collar of the cape, 
which was within an ace of poking it out, he felt It such an 
unlikely part and parcel of anything to be doted on that he 
substituted, "That she don't believe it?" 

"Ah, you dog! You're joking," said Tackleton. 

But the Carrier, though slow to understand the full drift 
of his meaning, eyed him in such a serious manner that he 
was obliged to be a little more explanatory. 

"I have the humor," said Tackleton, holding up the fingers 
of his left hand, and tapping the forefinger, to imply, "there 
I am, Tackleton, to wit," — "I have the humor, sir, to 
marry a young wife, and a pretty wife." Here he rapped his 
little finger, to express the bride; not sparingly, but sharply; 
with a sense of power. "I'm able to gratify that humor, and 
I do. It's my whim. But — now look there!" 

He pointed to where Dot was sitting, thoughtfully, before 
the fire; leaning her dimpled chin upon her hand, and watch- 
ing the bright blaze. The Carrier looked at her, and then 
at him, and then at her, and then at him again. 

"She honors and obeys, no doubt, you know," said Tackle- 
ton; "and that, as I am not a man of sentiment, is quite 
enough for me. But do you think there's anything more In 
It?" 

"I think," observed the Carrier, "that I should chuck any 
man out of window who said there wasn't." 

"Exactly so," returned the other with an unusual alacrity 



126 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

of assent. "To be sure! Doubtless you would. Of course, 
rm certain of it. Good night. Pleasant dreams!" 

The Carrier was puzzled, and made uncomfortable and 
uncertain, in spite of himself. He couldn't help showing it 
in his manner. 

"Good night, my dear friend!" said Tackleton compassion- 
ately. "Fm off. We're exactly alike, in reality, I see. You 
won't give us to-morrow evening? Well! Next day you go 
visiting, I know. I'll meet you there, and bring my wife 
that is to be. It'll do her good. You're agreeable .? Thankee. 
What's that?" 

It was a loud cry from the Carrier's wife, a loud, sharp, 
sudden cry, that made the room ring like a glass vessel. She 
had risen from her seat, and stood like one transfixed by 
terror and surprise. The Stranger had advanced towards 
the fire to warm himself, and stood within a short stride of 
her chair. But quite still. 

"Dot!" cried the Carrier. "Mary! Darling! What's 
the matter?" 

They were all about her in a moment. Caleb, who had 
been dozing on the cake box, in the first imperfect recovery 
of his suspended presence of mind, seized Miss Slowboy by 
the hair of her head, but immediately apologized. 

"Mary!" exclaimed the Carrier, supporting her in his 
arms. "Are you ill? What is it? Tell me, dear!" 

She only answered by beating her hands together, and 
falling into a wild fit oi laughter. Then, sinking from his 
grasp upon the ground, she covered her face with her apron, 
and wept bitterly. And then she laughed again, and then 
she cried again, and then she said how cold she was, and 
suflFered him to lead her to the fire, where she sat down as 
before. The old man standing, as before, quite still. 

" I'm better, John," she said. " I'm quite well now — I " — 

"John!" But John was on the other side of her. Why turn 
her face towards the strange old gentleman, as if addressing 
him? Was her brain wandering? 



CHIRP THE FIRST 1 27 

"Only a fancy, John, dear, — a kind of shock — a some- 
thing coming suddenly before my eyes — I don^t know what 
it was. It's quite gone, quite gone." 

"Fm glad it's gone," muttered Tackleton, turning the 
expressive eye all round the room. "I wonder where it's 
gone, and what it was. Humph! Caleb, come here! Who's 
that with the gray hair?" 

**I don't know, sir," returned Caleb, in a whisper. "Neyer 
see him before, in all my life. A beautiful figure for a nut- 
cracker; quite a new model. With a screw jaw opening down 
into his waistcoat, he'd be lovely." 

"Not ugly enough," said Tackleton. 

"Or for a fire box, either," observed Caleb, in deep con- 
templation; "what a model! Unscrew his head to put the 
matches in; turn him heels up'ards for the light; and what a 
fire box for a gentleman's mantelshelf, just as he stands!" 

" Not half ugly enough," said Tackleton. " Nothing in him 
at all. Come! Bring that box! All right now, I hope?" 

"Oh, quite gone! Quite gone!" said the little woman, 
waving him hurriedly away. "Good night!" 

"Good night," said Tackleton. "Good night, John Peery- 
bingle! Take care how you carry that box, Caleb. Let it 
fall and I'll murder you! Dark as pitch, and weather worse 
than ever, eh? Good night!" 

So, with another sharp look round the room, he went out 
at the door; followed by Caleb with the wedding cake on his 
head. 

The Carrier had been so much astounded by his little wife, 
and so busily engaged in soothing and tending her, that he 
had scarcely been conscious of the Stranger's presence until 
now, when he again stood there, their only guest. 

"He don't belong to them, you see," said John. "I must 
give him a hint to go." 

"I beg your pardon, friend," said the old gentleman, 
advancing to him; "the more so, as I fear your wife has not 
been well; but the attendant whom my infirmity" (he 



128 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

touched his ears, and shook his head) *' renders almost in- 
dispensable not having arrived, I fear there must be some 
mistake. The bad night, which made the shelter of your 
comfortable cart (may I never have a worse!) so acceptable, 
is still as bad as ever. Would you, in your kindness, suffer 
me to rent a bed here.?" 

"Yes, yes," cried Dot. ' "Yes! Certainly!" 

"Oh!" said the Carrier, surprised by the rapidity of this 
consent. "Well! I don't object; but, still I'm not quite sure 
that" — 

"Hush!" she interrupted. "Dear John!" 

"Why, he's stone-deaf," urged John. 

"I know he is, but — Yes, sir, certainly. Yes! certainly! 
I'll make him up a bed, directly, John." 

As she hurried off to do it, the flutter of her spirits and the 
agitation of her manner were so strange, that the Carrier 
stood looking after her, quite confounded. 

"Did its mothers make it up a beds then!" cried Miss 
Slowboy to the baby; "and did its hair grow brown and 
curly, when its caps was lifted off, and frighten it, a precious 
pets, a-sitting by the fires!" 

With that unaccountable attraction of the mind to trifles, 
which is often incidental to a state of doubt and confusion, 
the Carrier, as he walked slowly to and fro, found himself 
mentally repeating even these absurd words, many times. 
So many times, that he got them by heart, and was still 
conning them over and over, like a lesson, when Tilly, after 
administering as much friction to the little bal^ head with 
her hand as she thought wholesome (according to the prac- 
tice of nurses), had once more tied the baby's cap on. 

"And frighten it, a precious pets, a-sitting by the fires. 
What frightened Dot, I wonder?" mused the Carrier, pacing 
to and fro. 

He scouted, from his heart, the insinuations of the toy 
merchant, and yet they filled him with a vague, indefinite 
uneasiness. For Tackleton was quick and sly; and he had 



CHIRP THE FIRST 1 29 

that painful sense, himself, of being a man of slow perception 
that a broken hint was always worrying to him. He certainly 
had no intention in his mind of linking anything that Tackle- 
ton had said with the unusual conduct of his wife, but the 
two subjects of reflection came into his mind together, and 
he could not keep them asunder. 

The bed was soon made ready; and the visitor, declining 
all refreshment but a cup of tea, retired. Then Dot — quite 
well again, she said, quite well again — arranged the great 
chair in the chimney corner for her husband; filled his pipe 
and gave it him; and took her usual little stool beside him on 
the hearth. 

She always would sit on that little stool. I think she must 
have had a kind of notion that it was a coaxing, wheedling, 
little stool. 

She was, out and out, the very best filler of a pipe, I 
should say, in the four quarters of the globe. To see her 
put that chubby little finger in the bowl, and then blow 
down the pipe to clear the tube, and, when she had done so, 
affect to think that there was really something in the tube, 
and blow a dozen times, and hold it to her eye like a telescope, 
with a most provoking twist in her capital little face, as she 
looked down it, was quite a brilliant thing. As to the to- 
bacco, she was perfect mistress of the subject; and her light- 
ing of the pipe, with a wisp of paper, when the Carrier had 
it in his mouth — going so very near his nose, and yet not 
scorching it — was art, high art. 

And the Cricket and the Kettle, tuning up again, acknowl- 
edged it! The bright fire, blazing up again, acknowledged 
it! The little Mower on the clock, in his unheeded work, 
acknowledged it! The Carrier, in his smoothing forehead and 
expanding face, acknowledged it, the readiest of all. 

And as he soberly and thoughtfully puflPed at his old pipe, 
and as the Dutch clock ticked, and as the red fire gleamed, 
and as the Cricket chirped, that Genius of his Hearth and 
Home (for such the Cricket was) came out, in fairy shape, 



I30 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

into the room, and summoned many forms of home about 
him. Dots of all ages, and all sizes, filled the chamber. 
Dots who were merry children, running on before him, 
gathering flowers, in the fields; coy Dots, half shrinking 
from, half yielding to, the pleading of his own rough image; 
newly married Dots, alighting at the door, and taking wonder- 
ing possession of the household keys; motherly little Dots, 
attended by fictitious Slowboys, bearing babies to be chris- 
tened; matronly Dots, still young and blooming, watching 
Dots of daughters, as they danced at rustic balls; fat Dots, 
encircled and beset by troops of rosy grandchildren; withered 
Dots, who leaned on sticks, and tottered as they crept along. 
Old Carriers, too, appeared, with blind old Boxers lying at 
their feet; and newer carts with younger drivers ("Peery- 
bingle Brothers," on the tilt); and sick old Carriers, tended 
by the gentlest hands; and graves of dead and gone old 
Carriers, green in the churchyard. And as the Cricket 
showed him all these things — he saw them plainly, though 
his eyes were fixed upon the fire — the Carrier's heart grew 
light and happy, and he thanked his household gods with 
all his might, and cared no more for GruflP and Tackleton 
than you do. 

But what was that young figure of a man, which the same 
fairy Cricket set so near her stool, and which remained 
there, singly and alone? Why did it linger still, so near her, 
with its arm upon the chimney piece, ever repeating, *' Mar- 
ried! and not to me!" 

O Dot! O failing Dot! There is no place for it in all your 
husband's visions. Why has its shadow fallen on his hearth? 



CHIRP THE SECOND 131 



CHIRP THE SECOND 



Caleb Plummer and his Blind Daughter lived all alone by 
themselves, as the storybooks say, — and my blessing, 
with yours to back it, I hope, on the storybooks, for say- 
ing anything in this workaday world! — Caleb Plummer and 
his Blind Daughter lived all alone by themselves, in a little 
cracked nutshell of a wooden house, which was, in truth, no 
better than a pimple on the prominent red-brick nose of 
GrufF and Tackleton. The premises of Gruff and Tackleton 
were the great feature of the street; but you might have 
knocked down Caleb Plummer's dwelling with a hammer or 
two, and carried off the pieces in a cart. 

If any one had done the dwelling house of Caleb Plummer 
the honor to miss it after such an inroad, it would have been,' 
no doubt, to commend its demolition as a vast improvement. 
It stuck to the premises of Gruff and Tackleton like a barnacle 
to a ship's keel, or a snail to a door, or a little bunch of toad- 
stools to the stem of a tree. But it was the germ from which 
the full-grown trunk of Gruff and Tackleton had sprung; 
and under its crazy roof the Gruff before last had, in a small 
way, made toys for a generation of old boys and girls, who 
had played with them, and found them out, and broken them, 
and gone to sleep. 

I have said that Caleb and his poor Blind Daughter lived 
here. I should have said that Caleb lived here, and his poor 
Blind Daughter somewhere else, — in an enchanted home of 
Caleb's furnishing, where scarcity and shabbiness were not, 
and trouble never entered. Caleb was no sorcerer; but in 
the only magic art that still remains to us, the magic of de- 
voted, deathless love. Nature had been the mistress of his 
study; and from her teaching all the wonder came. 

The Blind Girl never knew that ceilings were discolored, 
walls blotched and bare of plaster here and there, high crev- 
ices unstopped and widening every day, beams moldering 



132 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

and tending downward. The Blind Girl never knew that 
iron was rusting, wood rotting, paper peeHng off; the size, 
and shape, and true proportion of the dwelling withering 
away. The Blind Girl never knew that ugly shapes of delf 
and earthenware were on the board; that sorrow and faint- 
heartedness were in the house; that Caleb's scanty hairs 
were turning grayer and more gray before her sightless face. 
The Blind Girl never knew they had a master, cold, exacting, 
and uninterested, — never knew that Tackleton was Tackle- 
ton, in short; but lived in the belief of an eccentric humorist, 
who loved to have his jest with them, and who, while he was 
the guardian angel of their lives, disdained to hear one word 
of thankfulness. 

And all was Caleb's doing; all the doing of her simple 
father! But he, too, had a Cricket on his Hearth; and, 
listening sadly to its music when the motherless Blind Child 
was very young, that spirit had inspired him with the thought 
that even her great deprivation might be almost changed 
into a blessing, and the girl made happy by these little means. 
For all the cricket tribe are potent spirits, even though the 
people who hold converse with them do not know it (which 
is frequently the case), and there are not in the unseen world 
voices more gentle and more true, that may be so implicitly 
relied on, or that are so certain to give none but tenderest 
counsel, as the voices in which the spirits of the fireside and 
the hearth address themselves to humankind. 

Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual 
working room, which served them for their ordinary living 
room as well; and a strange place it was. There were houses 
in it, finished and unfinished, for dolls of all stations in life. 
Suburban tenements for dolls of moderate means; kitchens 
and single apartments for dolls of the lower classes; capital 
town residences for dolls of high estate. Some of these 
establishments were already furnished according to estimate, 
with a view to the convenience of dolls of limited income; 
others could be fitted on the most expensive scale, at a mo- 



CHIRP THE SECOND 133 

merit's notice, from whole shelves of chairs and tables, sofas, 
bedsteads, and upholstery. The nobility and gentry and 
public in general, for whose accommodation these tenements 
were designed, lay, here and there, in baskets, staring straight 
up at the ceiling; but in denoting their degrees in society, and 
confining them to their respective stations (which experience 
shows to be lamentably difficult in real life),*^ the makers of 
these dolls had far improved on Nature, who is often fro- 
ward and perverse; for they, not resting on such arbitrary 
marks as satin, cotton print, and bits of rag, had superadded 
striking personal differences which allowed of no mistake. 
Thus, the doll lady of distinction had wax limbs of perfect 
symmetry; but only she and her compeers. The next grade 
in the social scale being made of leather, and the next of 
coarse linen stuff. As to the common people, they had just 
so many matches, out of tinder boxes, for their arms and 
legs, and there they were — established in their sphere at 
once, beyond the possibility of getting out of it. 

There were various other samples of his handicraft besides 
dolls in Caleb Plummer's room. There were Noah's arks, 
in which the birds and beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, 
I assure you; though they could be crammed in, anyhow, at 
the roof, and rattled and shaken into the smallest compass. 
By a bold poetical license, most of these Noah's arks had 
knockers on the doors; inconsistent appendages, perhaps, as 
suggestive of morning callers and a postman, yet a pleasant 
finish to the outside of the building. There were scores of 
melancholy little carts, which, when the wheels went round, 
performed most doleful music. Many small fiddles, drums, 
and other instruments of torture; no end of cannon, shields, 
swords, spears, and guns. There were little tumblers in red 
breeches, incessantly swarming up high obstacles of red tape, 
and coming, down, head first, on the other side; and there 
were innumerable old gentlemen of respectable, not to say 
venerable, appearance, insanely flying over horizontal pegs, 
inserted for the purpose in their own street doors. There were 



134 • THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

beasts of all sorts; horses in particular, of every breed, from 
the spotted barrel on four pegs, with a small tippet for a mane, 
to the thoroughbred rocker on his highest mettle. As it 
would have been hard to count the dozens upon dozens of 
grotesque figures that were ever ready to commit all sorts of 
absurdities on the turning of a handle, so it would have been 
no easy task to mention any human folly, vice, or weakness 
that had not its type, immediate or remote, in Caleb Plum- 
mer's room. And not in an exaggerated form, for very little 
handles will move men and women to as strange performances 
as any toy was ever made to undertake. 

In the midst of all these objects Caleb and his daughter sat 
at work. The Blind Girl busy as a doll's dressmaker; Caleb 
painting and glazing the four-pair front of a desirable family 
mansion. 

The care imprinted in the lines of Caleb's face, and his 
absorbed and dreamy manner, which would have sat well on 
some alchemist or abstruse student, were at first sight an odd 
contrast to his occupation and the trivialities about him. 
But trivial things, invented and pursued for bread, become 
very serious matters of fact; and, apart from this considera- 
tion, I am not at all prepared to say, myself, that if Caleb had 
been a lord chamberlain, or a member of Parliament, or a 
lawyer, or even a great speculator, he would have dealt in 
toys one whit less whimsical, while I have a very great doubt 
whether they would have been as harmless. 

"So you were out in the rain last night, father, in your 
beautiful new greatcoat," said Caleb's daughter. 

*'In my beautiful new greatcoat," answered Caleb, glanc- 
ing towards a clothesline in the room, on which the sack- 
cloth garment previously described, was carefully hung up 
to dry. 

''How glad I am you bought it, father! " 

''And of such a tailor, too," said Caleb. "Quite a fashion- 
able tailor. It's too good for me." 

The Blind Girl rested from her work, and laughed with 



CHIRP THE SECOND 135 

delight. **Too good, father! What can be too good for 
you? 

'Tm half ashamed to wear it, though," said Caleb, watch- 
jp# ing the effect of what he said upon her brightening face; 
*'upon my word! When I hear the boys and people say be- 
hind me, ' Hal-loa ! Here's a swell ! ' I don't know which way 
to look. And when the beggar wouldn't go away last night; 
and, when I said I was a very common man, said, ' No, your 
honor! Bless your honor, don't say that!' I was quite 
-*^' ashamed. I really felt as if I hadn't a right to wear it." 

Happy Blind Girl! How merry she was in her exultation! 

^^I see you, father," she said, clasping her hands, "as 
plainly as if I had the eyes I never want when you are with 
me. A blue coat" — 

"Bright blue," said Caleb. 

"Yes, yes! Bright blue!" exclaimed the girl, turning up 
her radiant face; "the color I can just remember in the blessed 
sky! You told me it was blue before! A bright blue coat" — 

"Made loose to the figure," suggested Caleb. 

"Yes! loose to the figure!" cried the Blind Girl, laughing 
heartily; "and in it, you, dear father, with your merry eye, 
your smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair, — look- 
ing so young and handsome!" 

"Halloa! Halloa!" said Caleb. "I shall be vain, pres- 
ently!" 

"/ think you are, already," cried the Blind Girl, pointing 
at him, in her glee. "I know you, father! Ha, ha, ha. I've 
found you out, you see!" 

How diflPerent the picture in her mind, from Caleb, as he 
sat observing her! She had spoken of his free step. She was 
right in that. For years and years, he had never once crossed 
that threshold at his own slow pace, but with a footfall 
counterfeited for her ear; and never had he, when his heart 
was heaviest, forgotten the light tread that was to render hers 
so cheerful and courageous! 

Heaven knows! But I think Caleb's vague bewilderment 



136 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

of manner may have half originated in his having confused 
himself about himself and everything around him, for the 
love of his Blind Daughter. How could the little man be 
otherwise than bewildered, after laboring for so many years 
to destroy his own identity, and that of all the objects that 
had any bearing on it! 

** There we are," said Caleb, falling back a pace or two to 
form the better judgment of his work; ''as near the real thing 
as sixpenn'orth of halfpence is to sixpence. What a pity that 
the whole front of the house opens at once! If there was only 
a staircase in it, now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in 
at! But that's the worst of my calling, Frn always deluding 
myself, and swindling myself." 

"You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired, 
father.?" 

"Tired!" echoed Caleb, with a great burst of animation. 
"What should tire me. Bertha.? / was never tired. What 
does it mean ? " 

To give the greater force to his words, he checked himself 
in an involuntary imitation of two half-length stretching and 
yawning figures on the mantelshelf, who were represented 
as in one eternal state of weariness from the waist upwards, 
and hummed a fragment of a song. It was a bacchanalian 
song, something about a Sparkling Bowl. He sang it with 
an assumption of a devil-may-care voice, that made his face 
a thousand times more meager and more thoughtful than 
ever. 

"What! You're singing, are you.?" said Tackleton, put- 
ting his head in at the door. "Go it! / can't sing." 

Nobody would have suspected him of it. He hadn't 
what is generally termed a singing face, by any means. 

"I can't afford to sing," said Tackleton. "I'm glad you 
can. I hope you can afford to work too. Hardly time for 
both, I should think?" 

"If you could only see him, Bertha, how he's winking at 
me!" whispered Caleb. "Such a man to joke! You'd think. 



CHIRP THE SECOND 137 

if you didn't know him, he was in earnest, — wouldn't you, 
now: 

The Blind Girl smiled and nodded. 

''The bird that can sing and won't sing must be made to 
sing, they say," grumbled Tackleton. ''What about the 
owl that can't sing, and oughtn't to sing, and will sing; is 
there anything that he should be made to do?" 

"The extent to which he's winking at this moment!" 
whispered Caleb to his daughter. . "Oh, my gracious!" 

"Always merry and light-hearted with us!" cried the 
smiling Bertha. 

"Oh! you're there, are you.^" answered Tackleton. "Poor 
idiot!" 

He really did believe she was an idiot; and he founded the 
belief, I can't say whether consciously or not, upon her being 
fond of him. 

"Well! and being there, — how are you?" said Tackleton, 
in his grudging way. 

"Oh! well; quite well. And as happy as even you can 
wish me to be. As happy as you would make the whole 
world, if you could!" 

"Poor idiot!" muttered Tackleton. "No gleam of reason. 
Not a gleam!" 

The Blind Girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for a 
moment in her own two hands; and laid her cheek against 
it tenderly, before releasing it. There was such unspeakable 
aflFection and such fervent gratitude in the act, that Tackle- 
ton himself was moved to say, in a milder growl than usual: — 

"What's the matter now?" 

"I stood it close beside my pillow when I went to sleep 
last night, and remembered it in my dreams. And when the 
day broke, and the glorious red sun — the red sun, father?" 

"Red in the mornings and the evenings. Bertha," said 
poor Caleb, with a woeful glance at his employer. 

"When it rose, and the bright light I almost fear to strike 
myself against in walking came into the room, I turned the 



138 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

little tree towards it, and blessed heaven for making things 
so precious, and blessed you for sending them to cheer me!" 

** Bedlam broke loose!" said Tackleton under his breath. 
"We shall arrive at the strait-waistcoat and mufflers soon. 
We're getting on!" 

Caleb, with his hands hooked loosely in each other, stared 
vacantly before him while his daughter spoke, as if he really 
were uncertain (I believe he was) whether Tackleton had 
done anything to deserve her thanks, or not. If he could 
have been a perfectly free agent, at that moment, required, 
on pain of death, to kick the toy merchant, or fall at his feet, 
according to his merits, I believe it would have been an even 
chance which course he would have taken. Yet Caleb knew 
that with his own hands he had brought the little rose tree 
home for her, so carefully, and that with his own lips he had 
forged the innocent deception which should help to keep her 
from suspecting how much, how very much, he every day 
denied himself, that she might be the happier. 

''Bertha!" said Tackleton, assuming, for the nonce, a 
little cordiality. ''Come here." 

"Oh! I can come straight to you! You needn't guide me!" 
she rejoined. 

"Shall I tell you a secret. Bertha.?" 

"If you will!" she answered eagerly. 

How bright the darkened face! How adorned with light 
the listening head! 

"This is the day on which little what's-her-name, the 
spoiled child, Peerybingle's wife, pays her regular visit to 
you — makes her fantastic picnic here, an't it.?" said Tackle- 
ton, with a strong expression of distaste for the whole con- 
cern. 

"Yes," replied Bertha. "This is the day." 

"I thought so," said Tackleton. "I should Hke to join 
the party." 

"Do you hear that, father?" cried the Blind Girl, in an 
ecstasy. 



CHIRP THE SECOND 139 

"Yes, yes, I hear it," murmured Caleb, with the fixed look 
of a sleepwalker; **but I don't believe it. It's one of my 
lies, Fve no doubt." 

"You see I — I want to bring the Peerybingles a little 
more into company with May Fielding," said Tackleton. 
"I am going to be married to May." 

"Married!" cried the Blind Girl, starting from him. 

"She's such a con-founded idiot," muttered Tackleton, 
"that I was afraid she'd never comprehend me. Ah, Bertha! 
Married! Church, parson, clerk, beadle, glass coach, bells, 
breakfast, bridecake, favors, marrowbones, cleavers, and 
all the rest of the tomfoolery. A wedding, you know; a 
wedding. Don't you know what a wedding is.?" / 

"I know," replied the Blind Girl, in a gentle tone. "I 
understand!" 

"Do you.?" muttered Tackleton. "It's more than I 
expected. Well! On that account I want to join the party, 
and to bring May and her mother. I'll send in a little some- 
thing or other, before the afternoon. A cold leg of mutton, 
or some comfortable trifle of that sort. You'll expect me.?" 

"Yes," she answered. 

She had drooped her head and turned away; and so stood, 
with her hands crossed, musing. 

"I don't think you will," muttered Tackleton, looking at 
her; "for you seem to have forgotten all about it, already. 
Caleb!" 

"I may venture to say I'm here, I suppose," thought 
Caleb. "Sir!" 

"Take care she don't forget what I've been saying to her." 

"SA^ never forgets," returned Caleb. "It's one of the 
few things she an't clever in." 

"Every man thinks his own geese swans," observed the 
toy merchant, with a shrug. "Poor devil!" 

Having delivered himself of which remark, with infinite 
contempt old GrufF and Tackleton withdrew. 

Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in meditation. 



I40 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

The gayety had vanished from her downcast face, and it was 
very sad. Three or four times she shook her head, as if 
bewailing some remembrance or some loss; but her sorrowful 
reflections found no vent in words. 

It was not until Caleb had been occupied, some time, in 
yoking a team of horses to a wagon, by the summary process 
of nailing the harness to the vital parts of their bodies, that 
she drew near to his working stool, and, sitting down beside 
him, said: — 

"Father, I am lonely in the dark. I want my eyes, my 
patient, willing eyes." 

'*Here they are," said Caleb. ''Always ready. They are 
more yours than mine. Bertha, any hour in the four and 
twenty. What shall your eyes do for you, dear?" 

''Look round the room, father." 

"All right," said Caleb. "No sooner said than done. 
Bertha." 

"Tell me about it." 

"It's much the same as usual," said Caleb. "Homely, 
but very snug. The gay colors on the walls; the bright 
flowers on the plates and dishes; the shining wood, where 
there are beams or panels; the general cheerfulness and neat- 
ness of the building, make it very pretty." 

Cheerful and neat it was, wherever Bertha's hands could 
busy themselves. But nowhere else were cheerfulness and 
neatness possible, in the old crazy shed which Caleb's fancy 
so transformed. 

"You have your working dress on, and are not so gallant 
as when you wear the handsome coat?" said Bertha, touching 
him. 

"Not quite so gallant," answered Caleb. "Pretty brisk, 
though." 

"Father," said the Blind Girl, drawing close to his side, 
and stealing one arm round his neck, "tell me something 
about May. She is very fair?" 

"She is indeed," said Caleb. And she was indeed. It was 



CHIRP THE SECOND 14I 

quite a rare thing to Caleb, not to have to draw on his in- 
vention. 

*'Her hair is dark/' said Bertha pensively, 'Marker than 
mine. Her voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have often 
loved to hear it. Her shape" — 

"There's not a doll's in all the room to equal it," said 
Caleb. "And her eyes!" — 

He stopped; for Bertha had drawn closer round his neck, 
and from the arm that clung about him came a warning 
pressure which he understood too well. 

He coughed a moment, hammered for a moment, and then 
fell back upon the song about the Sparkling Bowl, his infal- 
lible resource in all such difficulties. 

"Our friend, father, our benefactor. I am never tired, 
you know, of hearing about him. — Now, was I ever.?" she 
said hastily. 

"Of course not," answered Caleb, "and with reason." 

"Ah! With how much reason!" cried the Blind Girl, 
with such fervency that Caleb, though his motives were so 
pure, could not endure to meet her face; but dropped his 
eyes as if she could have read in them his innocent deceit. 

"Then tell me again about him, dear father," said Bertha. 
"Many times again! His face is benevolent, kind, and tender. 
Honest and true, I am sure it is. The manly heart, that tries 
to cloak all favors with a show of roughness and unwilling- 
ness, beats in its every look and glance." 

"And makes it noble," added Caleb, in his quiet despera- 
tion. 

"And makes it noble!" cried the Blind Girl. "He is older 
than May, father." 

"Ye-es," said Caleb reluctantly. "He's a little older than 
May. But that don't signify." 

"Oh, father, yes! To be his patient companion in infirmity 
and age; to be his gentle nurse in sickness, and his constant 
friend in suffering and sorrow; to know no weariness in work- 
ing for his sake; to watch him, tend him, sit beside his bed 



142 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

and talk to him awake, and pray for him asleep, what priv- 
ileges these would be! What opportunities for proving all 
her truth and her devotion to him! Would she do all this, 
dear father?" 

"No doubt of it," said Caleb. 

''I love her, father; I can love her from my soul!" exclaimed 
the Blind Girl. And saying so, she laid her poor, blind face 
on Caleb's shoulder, and so wept and wept that he was almost 
sorry to have brought that tearful happiness upon her. 

In the meantime, there had been a pretty sharp commo- 
tion at John Peerybingle's, for little Mrs. Peerybingle nat- 
urally couldn't think of going anywhere without the baby; 
and to get the baby under way took time. Not that there 
was much of the baby, speaking of it as a thing of weight 
and measure, but there was a vast deal to do about and about 
it, and it all had to be done by easy stages. For instance, 
when the baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain 
point of dressing, and you might have rationally supposed 
that another touch or two would finish him off, and turn him 
out a tiptop baby challenging the world, he was unexpectedly 
extinguished in a flannel cap, and hustled oflF to bed, where he 
simmered (so to speak) between two blankets for the best 
part of an hour. From this state of inaction he was then 
recalled, shining ver}^ much and roaring violently, to partake 
of — well.^ I would rather say, if you'll permit me to speak 
generally — of a slight repast. After which he went to sleep 
again. Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of this interval, to 
make herself as smart in a small way as ever you saw any- 
body in all your life; and, during the same short truce. Miss 
Slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so 
surprising and ingenious that it had no connection with her- 
self, or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, 
dog's-eared, independent fact, pursuing its lonely course 
without the least regard to anybody. By this time, the 
baby, being all alive again, was invested, by the united 
eflPorts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, with a cream- 



CHIRP THE SECOND 143 

colored mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen raised-pie 
for its head; and so in course of time they all three got down 
to the door, where the old horse had already taken more 
than the full value of his day's toll out of the Turnpike 
Trust, by tearing up the road with his impatient autographs; 
and whence Boxer might be dimly seen in the remote per- 
spective, standing looking back, and tempting him to come 
on without orders. 

As to a chair, or anything of that kind for helping Mrs. 
Peerybingle into the cart, you know very little of John, if 
you think that was necessary. Before you could have seen 
him lift her from the ground, there she was in her place, 
fresh and rosy, saying, **John! How can you! Think of 
Tilly!" 

If I might be allowed to mention a young lady's legs, on 
any terms, I would observe of Miss Slowboy's that there was 
a fatality about them which rendered them singularly liable 
to be grazed; and that she never effected the smallest ascent 
or descent without recording the circumstance upon them 
with a notch, as Robinson Crusoe marked the days upon his 
wooden calendar. But as this might be considered ungenteel, 
I'll think of it. 

"John? You've got the basket with the veal and ham pie 
and things, and the bottles of beer?" said Dot. "If you 
haven't, you must turn round again, this very minute." 

"You're a nice little article," returned the Carrier, "to be 
talking about turning round, after keeping me a full quarter 
of an hour behind my time." 

"I am sorry for it, John," said Dot in a great bustle, "but 
I really could not think of going to Bertha's — I would not 
do it, John, on any account — without the veal and ham 
pie and things, and the bottles of beer. Way!" 

This monosyllable was addressed to the horse, who didn't 
mind it at all. 

"Oh, do way, John!" said Mrs. Peerybingle. "Please!" 

"It'll be time enough to do that," returned John, "when 



144 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

I begin to leave things behind me. The basket's here safe 
enough." 

''What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not 
to have said so at once, and save me such a turn! I declare 
I wouldn't go to Bertha's without the veal and ham pie 
and things, and the bottles of beer, for any money. Reg- 
ularly once a fortnight ever since we have been married, 
John, have we made our little picnic there. If anything was 
to go wrong with it, I should almost think we were never to 
be lucky again." 

''It was a kind thought in the first instance," said the 
Carrier; "and I honor you for it, little woman." 

"My dear John," replied Dot, turning very red. "Don't 
talk about honoring me. Good gracious!" 

"By the bye," observed the Carrier; "that old gentle- 
man" — 

Again so visibly and instantly embarrassed! 

"He's an odd fish," said the Carrier, looking straight along 
the road before them. "I can't make him out. I don't be- 
lieve there's any harm in him." 

"None at all. I'm — I'm sure there's none at all." 

"Yes," said the Carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face 
by the great earnestness of her manner. "I am glad you feel 
so certain of it, because it's a confirmation to me. It's curious 
that he should have taken it into his head to ask leave to go 
on lodging with us; an't it } Things come about so strangely." 

"So very strangely," she rejoined in a low voice, scarcely 
audible. 

"However, he's a good-natured old gentleman," said John, 
"and pays as a gentleman, and I think his word is to be re- 
lied upon, like a gentleman's. I had quite a long talk with 
him this morning; he can hear me better already, he says, as 
he gets more used to my voice. He told me a great deal about 
himself, and I told him a good deal about myself, and a rare 
lot of questions he asked me. I gave him information about 
my having two beats, you know, in my business: one day to 



CHIRP THE SECOND 1 45 

the right from our house and back again; another day to the 
left from our house and back again (for he's a stranger and 
don't know the names of places about here); and he seemed 
quite pleased. ' Why, then I shall be returning home to-night 
your way,' he says, Vhen I thought you'd be coming in an 
exactly opposite direction. That's capital! I may trouble 
you for another lift, perhaps, but I'll engage not to fall so 
sound asleep again.' He was sound asleep, sure-ly! — Dot! 
what are you thinking oU " 

''Thinking of, John? I — I was listening to you." 
*'0h! that's all right!" said the honest Carrier. *'I was 
afraid, from the look of your face, that I had gone rambling 
on so long as to set you thinking about something else. I 
was very near it, I'll be bound." Dot making no reply, they 
jogged on, for some little time, in silence. But it was not 
easy to remain silent very long in John Peerybingle's cart, 
for everybody on the road had something to say. Though it 
might only be ''How are you.? " and indeed it was very often 
nothing else; still, to give that back again in the right spirit 
of cordiality required, not merely a nod and a smile, but as 
wholesome an action of the lungs withal as a long-winded 
Parliamentary speech. Sometimes passengers on foot or 
horseback plodded on a little way beside the cart, for the ex- 
press purpose of having a chat; and then there was a great 
deal to be said on both sides. 

Then, Boxer gave occasion to more good-natured recogni- 
tions of, and by, the Carrier than half a dozen Christians 
could have done! Everybody knew him all along the road, 
— especially the fowls and pigs, who when they saw him 
approaching, with his body all on one side, and his ears 
pricked up inquisitively, and that knob of a tail making the 
most of itself in the air, immediately withdrew into remote 
back settlements, without waiting for the honor of a nearer 
acquaintance. He had business elsewhere; going down all the 
turnings, looking into all the wells, bolting in and out of all 
the cottages, dashing into the midst of all the dame schools,** 



146 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

fluttering all the pigeons, magnifying the tails of all the cats," 
and trotting into the public houses like a regular customer. 
Wherever he went, somebody or other might have been heard 
to cry, ''Halloa! here's Boxer! " and out came that somebody 
forthwith, accompanied by at least two or three other some- 
bodies, to give John Peerybingle and his pretty wife good 
day. 

The packages and parcels for the errand cart were nu- 
merous; and there were many stoppages to take them in and 
give them out, which were not by any means the worst parts 
of the journey. Some people were so full of expectation about 
their parcels, and other people were so full of wonder about 
their parcels, and other people were so full of inexhaustible 
directions about their parcels, and John had such a lively in- 
terest in all the parcels, that it was as good as a play. Like- 
wise, there were articles to carry which required to be consid- 
ered and discussed, and in reference to the adjustment and 
disposition of which councils had to be holden by the Carrier 
and the senders; at which Boxer usually assisted in short fits 
of the closest attention, and long fits of tearing round and 
round the assembled sages and barking himself hoarse. Of 
all these little incidents. Dot was the amused and open-eyed 
spectatress from her chair in the cart; and as she sat there, 
looking on, — a charming little portrait framed to admiration 
by the tilt, — there was no lack of nudgings and glancings 
and whisperings and envyings among the younger men. And 
this delighted John the Carrier beyond measure; for he was 
proud to have his little wife admired, knowing that she didn't 
mind it, — that, if anything, she rather liked it, perhaps. 

The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January 
weather, and was raw and cold. But who cared for such 
trifles .f* Not Dot, decidedly. Not Tilly Slowboy, for she 
deemed sitting in a cart, on any terms, to be the highest point 
of human joys, the crowning circumstance of earthly hopes. 
Not the baby, I'll be sworn, for it's not in baby nature to be 
warmer or more sound asleep, though its capacity is great in 



CHIRP THE SECOND 1 47 

both respects, than that blessed young Peerybingle was all 
the way. 

You couldn't see very far in the fog, of course; but you 
could see a great deal! It's astonishing how much you may 
see, in a thicker fog than that, if you will only take the trouble 
to look for it. Why, even to sit watching for the fairy rings 
in the fields, and for the patches of hoarfrost still lingering 
in the shade, near hedges and by trees, was a pleasant occu- 
pation, to make no mention of the unexpected shapes in which 
the trees themselves came starting out of the mist, and glided 
into it again. The hedges were tangled and bare, and waved 
a multitude of blighted garlands in the wind; but there was 
no discouragement in this. It was agreeable to contemplate, 
for it made the fireside warmer in possession and the summer 
greener in expectancy. The river looked chilly; but it was in 
motion, and moving at a good pace, — which was a great 
point. The canal was rather slow and torpid; that must be 
admitted. Never mind. It would freeze the sooner when the 
frost set fairly in, and then there would be skating and sliding, 
and the heavy old barges, frozen up somewhere near a wharf, 
would smoke their rusty iron chimney pipes all day, and have 
a lazy time of it. 

In one place there was a great mound of weeds or stubble 
burning; and they watched the fire, so white in the daytime, 
flaring through the fog, with only here and there a dash of red 
in it, until, in consequence, as she observed, of the smoke 
''getting up her nose," Miss Slowboy choked — she could do 
anything of that sort on the smallest provocation — and woke 
the baby, who wouldn't go to sleep again. But Boxer who 
was in advance some quarter of a mile or so, had already 
passed the outposts of the town, and gained the corner of the 
street where Caleb and his daughter lived; and long before 
they had reached the door, he and the Blind Girl were on the 
pavement waiting to receive them. 

Boxer, by the way, made certain delicate distinctions of his 
own in his communication with Bertha, which persuade me 



148 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

fully that he knew her to be blind. He never sought to attract 
her attention by looking at her, as he often did with other 
people, but touched her invariably. What experience he 
could ever have had of blind people or blind dogs I don't 
know. He had never lived with a bHnd master; nor had Mr. 
Boxer the elder, nor Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his respectable 
. family on either side, ever been visited with blindness, that 
I am aware of. He may have found it out for himself, per- 
haps, but he had got hold of it somehow; and therefore he had 
hold of Bertha, too, by the skirt, and kept hold until Mrs. 
Peerybingle and the baby, and Miss Slowboy and the basket, 
were all got safely within doors. 

May Fielding was already come; and so was her mother, 
— a little querulous chip of an old lady with a peevish face, 
who, in right of having preserved a waist like a bedpost, was 
supposed to be a most transcendent figure; and who, in conse- 
quence of having once been better ofF, or of laboring under an 
impression that she might have been, if something had hap- 
pened which never did happen, and seemed to have never 
been particularly likely to come to pass, — but it's all the 
same, — was very genteel and patronizing indeed. GrufF 
and Tackleton was also there, doing the agreeable, with the 
evident sensation of being as perfectly at home, and as un- 
questionably in his own element, as a fresh young salmon on 
the top of the Great Pyramid. 

^'May! my dear old friend!" cried Dot, running up to 
meet her. "'What a happiness to see you!" 

Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as 
she; and it really was, if you'll believe me, quite a pleasant 
sight to see them embrace. Tackleton was a man of taste, 
beyond all question. May was very pretty. 

You know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, 
how, when it comes into contact and comparison with an- 
other pretty face, it seems for the moment to be homely 
and faded, and hardly to deserve the high opinion you have 
had of it. Now this was not at all the case, either with Dot 



CHIRP THE SECOND 149 

or May; for May's face set off Dot's, and Dot's face set off 
May's, so naturally and agreeably that, as John Peerybingle 
was very near saying when he came into the room, they 
ought to have been born sisters, — which was the only im- 
provement you could have suggested. 

Tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful 
to relate, a tart besides, — but we don't mind a little dis- 
sipation when our brides are in the case; we don't get married 
every day; and in addition to these dainties there were the 
veal and ham pie, and ''things," as Mrs. Peerybingle called 
them, — which were chiefly nuts and oranges and cakes, and 
such small deer. When the repast was set forth on the board, 
flanked by Caleb's contribution, which was a great wooden 
bowl of smoking potatoes (he was prohibited, by solemn 
compact, from producing any other viands), Tackleton led 
his intended mother-in-law to the post of honor. For the 
better gracing of this place at the high festival, the majestic 
old soul had adorned herself with a cap, calculated to in- 
spire the thoughtless with sentiments of awe. She also wore 
her gloves. But let us be genteel, or die! 

Caleb sat next his daughter; Dot and her old schoolfellow 
were side by side; the good Carrier took care of the bottom 
of the table. Miss Slowboy was isolated, for the time being, 
from every article of furniture but the chair she sat on, that 
she might have nothing else to knock the baby's head against. 

As Tilly stared about her at the dolls and toys, they stared 
at her and at the company. The venerable old gentlemen 
at the street doors (who were all in full action) showed 
especial interest in the party, pausing occasionally before 
leaping, as if they were listening to the conversation, and 
then plunging wildly over and over, a great many times, 
without halting for breath, — as in a frantic state of delight 
with the whole proceedings. 

Certainly, if these old gentlemen were inclined to have a 
fiendish joy in the contemplation of Tackleton's discomfiture, 
they had good reason to be satisfied. Tackleton couldn't 



150 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

get on at all; and the more cheerful his intended bride became 
in Dot's society, the less he liked it, though he had brought 
them together for that purpose. For he was a regular dog in 
the manger, was Tackleton; and when they laughed and he 
couldn't, he took it into his head, immediately, that they 
must be laughing at him. 

*'Ah, May!" said Dot. "Dear, dear, what changes! To 
talk of those merry school days makes one young again." 

"Why, you an't particularly old, at any time, are you.?" 
said Tackleton. 

"Look at my sober, plodding husband there," returned 
Dot. "He adds twenty years to my age at least. Don't you, 
John.?" 

" Forty," John replied. 

"How many youW add to May's, I am sure I don't know," 
said Dot, laughing. " But she can't be much less than a hun- 
dred years of age on her next birthday." 

"Ha, ha!" laughed Tackleton. Hollow as a drum that 
laugh, though. And he looked as if he could have twisted 
Dot's neck comfortably. 

"Dear, dear!" said Dot. "Only to remember how we 
used to talk, at school, about the husbands we would choose. 
I don't know how young, and how handsome, and how gay, 
and how lively, mine was not to be! And as to May's! — 
Ah, dear! I don't know whether to laugh or cry, when I 
think what silly girls we were." 

May seemed to know which to do; for the color flashed into 
her face, and tears stood in her eyes. 

"Even the very persons themselves — real live young men 
— we fixed on sometimes," said Dot. "We little thought how 
things would come about. I never fixed on John, I'm sure; I 
never so much as thought of him. And if I had told you, you 
were ever to be married to Mr. Tackleton, why, you'd have 
slapped me. Wouldn't you. May.?" 

Though May didn't say yes, she certainly didn't say no, 
or express no, by any means. 



CHIRP THE SECOND 151 

Tackleton laughed — quite shouted, he laughed so loud. 
John Peerybingle laughed too, in his ordinary good-natured 
and contented manner; but his was a mere whisper of a 
laugh, to Tackleton's. 

''You couldn't help yourselves, for all that. You couldn't 
resist us, you see," said Tackleton. "Here we are! Here we 
are! Where are your gay young bridegrooms now.f^" 

''Some of them are dead," said Dot; "and some of them 
forgotten. Some of them, if they could stand among us at 
this moment, would not believe we were the same creatures; 
would not believe that what they saw and heard was real, and 
we could forget them so. No! they would not believe one 
word of it!" 

"Why, Dot!" exclaimed the Carrier. "Little woman!" 

She had spoken with such earnestness and fire, that she 
stood in need of some recalling to herself, without doubt. 
Her husband's check was very gentle, for he merely interfered, 
as he supposed, to shield old Tackleton; but it proved effec- 
tual, for she stopped, and said no more. There was an un- 
common agitation, even in her silence, which the wary 
Tackleton, who had brought his half-shut eye to bear upon 
her, noted closely, and remembered to some purpose too. 

May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, 
with her eyes cast down, and made no sign of interest in 
what had passed. The good lady her mother now interposed, 
observing, in the first instance, that girls were girls, and by- 
gones bygones, and that so long as young people were young 
and thoughtless, they would probably conduct themselves 
like young and thoughtless persons; with two or three other 
positions of a no less sound and incontrovertible character. 
She then remarked, in a devout spirit, that she thanked 
heaven she had always found in her daughter May a dutiful 
and obedient child: for which she took no credit to herself, 
though she had every reason to believe it was entirely owing 
to herself. With regard to Mr. Tackleton, she said, that he 
was in a moral point of view an undeniable individual, and 



152 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

that he was in an eHgible point of view a son-in-law to be 
desired, no one in "their senses could doubt. (She was very 
emphatic here.) With regard to the family into which he 
was so soon about, after some solicitation, to be admitted, she 
believed Mr. Tackleton knew that, although reduced in 
purse, it had some pretensions to gentility; and that if certain 
circumstances, not wholly unconnected, she would go so far 
as to say, with the indigo trade, but to which she would not 
more particularly refer, had happened differently, it might 
perhaps have been in possession of wealth. She then re- 
marked that she would not allude to the past, and would not 
mention that her daughter had for some time rejected the 
suit of Mr. Tackleton; and that she would not say a great 
many other things which she did say, at great length. Fi- 
nally, she delivered it as the general result of her observation 
and experience, that those marriages in which there was 
least of what was romantically and sillily called love were 
always the happiest; and that she anticipated the greatest 
possible amount of bliss — not rapturous bliss, but the solid, 
steady-going article — from the approaching nuptials. She 
concluded by informing the company that to-morrow was 
the day she had lived for expressly; and that when it was 
over, she would desire nothing better than to be packed up 
and disposed of, in any genteel place of burial. 

As these remarks were quite unanswerable, — which is the 
happy property of all remarks that are sufficiently wide of 
the purpose, — they changed the current of the conversation, 
and diverted the general attention to the veal and ham pie, 
the cold mutton, the potatoes, and the tart. In order that 
the bottled beer might not be slighted, John Peerybingle 
proposed To-morrow: the Wedding Day; and called upon 
them to drink a bumper to it, before he proceeded on his 
journey. 

For you ought to know that he only rested there, and gave 
the old horse a bait. He had to go some four or five miles 
farther on; and when he returned in the evening, he called 



CHIRP THE SECOND 1 53 

for Dot, and took another rest on his way home. This was 
the order of the day on all the picnic occasions, and had been, 
ever since their institution. 

There were two persons present, besides the bride and 
bridegroom elect, who did but indifferent honor to the toast. 
One of these was Dot, too flushed and discomposed to adapt 
herself to any small occurrence of the moment; the other. 
Bertha, who rose up hurriedly before the rest, and left the 
table. 

*'Good-by!" said stout John Peerybingle, pulling on his 
dreadnaught coat. ''I shall be back at the old time. Good- 
by, all!" 

/*Good-by, John," returned Caleb. 

He seemed to say it by rote, and to wave his hand in the 
same unconscious manner; for he stood observing Bertha 
with an anxious v/ondering face, that never altered its ex- 
pression. 

*'Good-by, young shaver! " said the jolly Carrier, bending 
down to kiss the child, which Tilly Slowboy, now intent upon 
her knife and fork, had deposited asleep (and strange to say, 
without damage) in a little cot of Bertha's furnishing; "good- 
by ! Time will come, I suppose, when 3;o^'ll turn out into the 
cold, my little friend, and leave your old father to enjoy his 
pipe and his rheumatics in the chimney corner; eh.? Where's 
Dot?" 

'^I'm here, John!" she said, starting. 

''Come, come!" returned the Carrier, clapping his sound- 
ing hands. 

"Where's the pipe.?" 

''I quite forgot the pipe, John." 

Forgot the pipe! Was such a wonder ever heard of.? She! 
Forgot the pipe! 

"I'll — I'll fill it directly. It's soon done." 

But it was not so soon done, either. It lay in the usual 
place — the Carrier's dreadnaught pocket — with the little 
pouch, her own work, from which she was used to fill it; but 



154 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

her hand shook so that she entangled it (and yet her hand was 
small enough to have come out easily, I am sure), and bungled 
terribly. The filling of the pipe and lighting it, those little 
offices in which I have commended her discretion, were vilely 
done from first to last. During the whole process, Tackleton 
stood looking on maliciously with the half-closed eye; which 
whenever it met hers — or caught it, for it can hardly be said 
to have ever met another eye, rather being a kind of trap to 
snatch it up — augmented her confusion in a most remark- 
able degree. 

''Why, what a clumsy Dot you are, this afternoon!" said 
John. ''I could have done it better myself, I verily believe!" 

With these good-natured words, he strode away, and 
presently was heard, in company with Boxer, and the old 
horse, and the cart, making lively music down the road. 
What time the dreamy Caleb still stood, watching his blind 
daughter, with the same expression on his face. 

''Bertha! " said Caleb softly. "What has happened.? How 
changed you are, my darling, in a few hours — since this 
morning! You silent and dull all day! What is it.f^ Tell 
me!" 

"Oh, father, father!" cried the Blind Girl, bursting into 
tears. "Oh, my hard, hard fate!" 

Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her. 

"But think how cheerful and how happy you have been. 
Bertha! How good, and how much loved, by many people." 

"That strikes me to the heart, dear father! Always so 
mindful of me! Always so kind to me!" 

Caleb was very much perplexed to understand her. 

"To be — to be blind, Bertha, my poor dear," he faltered, 
"is a great aflSiction; but" — 

"I have never felt it! " cried the Blind Girl. "I have never 
felt it, in its fullness. Never! I have sometimes wished that 
I could see you, or could see him, — only once, dear father, 
only for one little minute, — that I might know what it is I 
treasure up" (she laid her hands upon her breast) "and hold 



CHIRP THE SECOND 1 55 

here! That I might be sure I have it right! And sometimes 
(but then I was a child) I have wept, in my prayers at night, 
to think that when your images ascended from my heart to 
heaven, they might not be the true resemblance of your- 
selves. But I have never had these feelings long. They have 
passed away, and left me tranquil and contented." 

*'And they will again," said Caleb. 

"But, father! Oh, my good gentle father, bear with me, if 
I am wicked! " said the Blind Girl. *'This is not the sorrow 
that so weighs me down ! " 

Her father could not choose but let his moist eyes overflow, 
she was so earnest and pathetic. But he did not understand 
her yet. 

*' Bring her to me," said Bertha. *'I cannot hold it closed 
and shut within myself. Bring her to me, father! " 

She knew he hesitated, and said, '*May. Bring May!" 

May heard the mention of her name, and coming quietly 
towards her, touched her on the arm. The Blind Girl turned 
immediately, and held her by both hands. 

"Look into my face, dear heart, sweet heart! " said Bertha. 
"Read it with your beautiful eyes, and tell me if the truth is 
written on it." 

"Dear Bertha, yes!" 

The Blind Girl, still upturning the blank sightless face, 
down which the tears were coursing fast, addressed her in 
these words: — 

"There is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that is not for 
your good, bright May! There is not, in my soul, a grateful 
recollection, stronger than the deep remembrance which is 
stored there, of the many, many times when, in the full pride 
of sight and beauty, you have had consideration for Blind 
Bertha, even when we two were children, or when Bertha was 
as much a child as ever blindness can be! Every blessing on 
your head! Light upon your happy course! Not the less, 
my dear May" (and she drew towards her, in a closer grasp), 
"not the less, my bird, because, to-day, the knowledge that 



156 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

you are to be his wife has wrung my heart almost to break- 
ing! Father, May, Mary! oh, forgive me that it is so, for the 
sake of all he has done to relieve the weariness of my dark life, 
and for the sake of the belief you have in me, when I call 
heaven to witness that I could not wish him married to a 
wife more worthy of his goodness! " 

While speaking, she had released May Fielding's hands, and 
clasped her garments in an attitude of mingled supplication 
and love. Sinking lower and lower down, as she proceeded 
in her strange confession, she dropped at last at the feet of 
her friend, and hid her blind face in the folds of her dress. 

*' Great power! '^ exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow 
with the truth, ''have I deceived her from her cradle, but to 
break her heart at last.?" 

It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, 
busy little Dot, — for such she was, whatever faults she had, 
and however you may learn to hate her in good time, — it 
was well for all of them, I say, that she was there, or where 
this would have ended, it were hard to tell. But Dot, re- 
covering her self-possession, interposed, before May could 
reply, or Caleb say another word. 

''Come, come, dear Bertha! come away with me! Give her 
your arm, May. . So! How composed she is, you see, already; 
and how good it is of her to mind us," said the cheery little 
woman, kissing her upon the forehead. "Come away, dear 
Bertha. Come! and here's her good father will come with her, 
won't you, Caleb ^ To — be — sure ! " 

Well, well! she was a noble little Dot in such things, and it 
must have been an obdurate nature that could have with- 
stood her influence. When she had got poor Caleb and his 
Bertha away, that they might comfort and console each other, 
as she knew they only could, she presently came bouncing 
back, — the saying is, as fresh as any daisy; / say fresher, 
— to mount guard over that bridling little piece of conse- 
quence in the cap and gloves and prevent the dear old creature 
from making discoveries. 



CHIRP THE SECOND 1 57 

*'So bring me the precious baby, Tilly," said she, drawing 
a chair to the fire; '*and while I have it in my lap, here's Mrs. 
Fielding, Tilly, will tell me all about the management of 
babies, and put me right in twenty points where Fm as wrong 
as can be. Won't you Mrs. Fielding?" 

Not even the Welsh Giant, who, according to the popular 
expression, was so ''slow" as to perform a fatal surgical 
operation upon himself, in emulation of a juggling trick 
achieved by his arch-enemy at breakfast time; not even he 
fell half so readily into the snare prepared for him as the old 
lady into this artful pitfall. The fact of Tackleton having 
walked out, and, furthermore, of two or three people having 
been talking together at a distance for two minutes, leaving 
her to her own resources, was quite enough to have put her 
on her dignity, and the bewailment of that mysterious con- 
vulsion in the indigo trade, for four and twenty hours. But 
this becoming deference to her experience, on the part of the 
young mother, was so irresistible that, after a short affecta- 
tion of humility, she began to enlighten her with the best 
grace in the world; and sitting bolt upright before the wicked 
Dot, she did, in half an hour, deliver more infallible domestic 
recipes and precepts than would (if acted on) have utterly 
destroyed and done up that young Peerybingle, though he 
had been an infant Samson. 

To change the theme. Dot did a little needlework, — she 
carried the contents of a whole workbox in her pocket, how- 
ever she contrived it, / don't know, — then did a little nursing; 
then a little more needlework; then had a little whispering 
chat with May, while the old lady dozed; and so in little bits 
of bustle, which was quite her manner alwaya, found it a 
very short afternoon. Then, as it grew dark, and as it was a 
solemn part of this institution of the picnic that she should 
perform all Bertha's household tasks, she trimmed the fire, 
and swept the hearth, and set the tea board out, and drew 
the curtain, and lighted a candle. Then she played an air 
or two on a rude kind of harp, which Caleb had contrived 



158 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

for Bertha, and played them very well; for nature had made 
her delicate little ear as choice a one for music as it would 
have been for jewels, if she had had any to wear. By this time 
it was the established hour for having tea; and Tackleton 
came back again, to share the meal, and spend the evening. 

Caleb and Bertha had returned some time before, and 
Caleb had sat down to his afternoon's work. But he couldn't 
settle to it, poor fellow, being anxious and remorseful for his 
daughter. It was touching to see him sitting idle on his 
working stool, regarding her so wistfully, and always saying 
in his face, ''Have I deceived her from her cradle, but to 
break her heart .^" 

When it was night, and tea was done, and Dot had nothing 
more to do in washing up the cups and saucers; in a word, — 
for I must come to it, and there is no use in putting it off, — 
when the time drew nigh for expecting the Carrier's return 
in every sound of distant wheels, her manner changed again, 
her color came and went, and she was very restless. Not as 
good wives are, when listening for their husbands. No, no, 
no. It was another sort of restlessness from that. 

Wheels heard. A horse's feet. The barking of a dog. The 
gradual approach of all the sounds. The scratching paw of 
Boxer at the door! 

''Whose step is that-f*" cried Bertha, starting up. 

"Whose step.?" returned the Carrier, standing in the 
portal, with his brown face ruddy as a winter berry from the 
keen night air. "Why, mine." 

"The other step," said Bertha; "the man's tread behind 
you!" 

"She is not to be deceived," observed the Carrier, laughing. 
"Come along, sir. You'll be welcome, never fear!" 

He spoke in a loud tone; and as he spoke, the deaf old 
gentleman entered. 

"He's not so much a stranger that you haven't seen him 
once, Caleb," said the Carrier. "You'll give him house room 
till we go?" 



CHIRP THE SECOND 1 59 

"Oh, surely, John, and take it as an honor." 

"He's the best company on earth, to talk secrets in,'' 
said John. "I have reasonable good lungs, but he tries 'em, 
I can tell you. Sit down, sir. All friends here, and glad to 
see you!" 

When he had imparted this assurance, in a voice that amply 
corroborated what he had said about his lungs, he added in 
his natural tone, "A chair in the chimney corner, and leave 
to sit quite silent and look pleasantly about him, is all he 
cares for. He's easily pleased." 

Bertha had been listening intently. She called Caleb to 
her side, when he had set the chair, and asked him, in a low 
voice, to describe their visitor. When he had done so (truly 
now, with scrupulous fidelity), she moved, for the first time 
since he had come in, and sighed, and seemed to have no 
further interest concerning him. 

The Carrier was in high spirits, good fellow that he was, 
and fonder of his little wife than ever. 

"A clumsy Dot she was, this afternoon!" he said, encircling 
her with his rough arm, as she stood, removed from the rest; 
"and yet I like her somehow. See yonder. Dot!" 

He pointed to the old man. She looked down. I think 
she trembled. 

"He's — ha, ha, ha! — he's full of admiration for you!" 
said the Carrier. "Talked of nothing else, the whole way 
here. Why, he's a brave old boy. I like him for it!" 

"I wish he had had a better subject, John," she said, with 
an uneasy glance about the room; at Tackleton especially. 

"A better subject!" cried the jovial John. "There's no 
such thing. Come! off with the greatcoat, off with the 
thick shawl, off with the heavy wrappers! and a cozy half 
hour by the fire! My humble service, mistress. A game at 
cribbage, you and I ? That's hearty. The cards and board. 
Dot. And a glass of beer here, if there's any left, small wife ! " 

His challenge was addressed to the old lady, who accepting 
it with gracious readiness, they were soon engaged upon the 



l6o THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

game. At first, the Carrier looked about him sometimes, 
with a smile, or now and then called Dot to peep over his 
shoulder at his hand, and advise him on some knotty point. 
But his adversary being a rigid disciplinarian, and subject 
to an occasional weakness in respect of pegging more than 
she was entitled to, required such vigilance on his part as 
left him neither eyes nor ears to spare. Thus, his whole 
attention gradually became absorbed upon the cards; and 
he thought of nothing else, until a hand upon his shoulder 
restored him to a consciousness of Tackleton. 

"I am sorry to disturb you — but a word directly." 
'^I'm going to deal," returned the Carrier. ''It's a crisis." 
''It is," said Tackleton. "Come here, man!" 
There was that in his pale face which made the other rise 
immediately, and ask him, in a hurry, what the matter was. 
"Hush! John Peerybingle," said Tackleton, "I am sorry 
for this. I am indeed. I have been afraid of it. I have 
suspected it from the first." 

"What is it?" asked the Carrier, with a frightened aspect. 
"Hush! I'll show you, if you'll come with me." 
The Carrier accompanied him, without another word. 
They went across a yard, where the stars were shining, and 
by a little side door, into Tackleton's own countinghouse, 
where there was a glass window, commanding the ware- 
room, which was closed for the night. There was no light in 
the countinghouse itself, but there were lamps in the long 
narrow wareroom; and consequently the window was bright. 
"A moment!" said Tackleton. "Can you bear to look 
through that window, do you think?" 
"Why not?" returned the Carrier. 

"A moment more," said Tackleton. "Don't commit any 
violence. It's of no use. It's dangerous, too. You're a strong- 
made man; and you might do murder before you know it." 
The Carrier looked him in the face, and recoiled a step as 
if he had been struck. In one stride he was at the window, 
and he saw — 



CHIRP THE SECOND l6l 

Oh, Shadow on the Hearth! Oh, truthful Cricket! Oh, 
perfidious wife! 

He saw her with the old man, — old no longer, but erect 
and gallant, — bearing in his hand the false white hair that 
had won his way into their desolate and miserable home. 
He saw her listening to him, as he bent his head to whisper in 
her ear; and suffering him to clasp her round the waist, as 
they moved slowly down the dim wooden gallery towards 
the door by which they had entered it. He saw them stop, 
and saw her turn, — to have the face, the face he loved so, 
so presented to his view! — and saw her, with her own hands, 
adjust the lie upon his head, laughing, as she did it, at his 
unsuspicious nature! 

He clenched his strong right hand at first, as if it would 
have beaten down a lion. But opening it immediately again, 
he spread it out before the eyes of Tackleton (for he was 
tender of her, even then), and so, as they passed out, fell 
down upon a desk, and was as weak as any infant. 

He was wrapped up to the chin, and busy with his horse 
and parcels, when she came into the room, prepared for going 
home. 

''Now, John, dear! Good night. May! Good night, Bertha!" 

Could she kiss them ? Could she be blithe and cheerful in 
her parting? Could she venture to reveal her face to them 
without a blush .^ Yes. Tackleton observed her closely, 
and she did all this. 

Tilly was hushing the baby, and she crossed and recrossed 
Tackleton a dozen times, repeating drowsily: — 

''Did the knowledge that it was to be its wives, then, 
wring its hearts almost to breaking; and did its fathers de- 
ceive it from its cradles but to break its hearts at last!" 

"Now, Tilly, give me the baby! Good night, Mr. Tackle- 
ton. Where's John, for goodness' sake.?" 

"He's going to walk beside the horse's head," said Tackle- 
ton, who helped her to her seat. 

"My dear John! Walk.? To-night?" 



1 62 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

The muffled figure of her husband made a hasty sign in 
the affirmative; and the false stranger and the Httle nurse 
being in their places, the old horse moved off. Boxer, the 
unconscious Boxer, running on before, running back, running 
round and round the cart, and barking as triumphantly and 
merrily as ever. 

When Tackleton had gone off likewise, escorting May 
and her mother home, poor Caleb sat down by the fire beside 
his daughter; anxious and remorseful at the core; and still 
saying in his wistful contemplation of her, ^'Have I deceived 
her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last.f*" 

The toys that had been set in motion for the baby had all 
stopped and run down, long ago. In the faint light and 
silence, the imperturbably calm dolls, the agitated rocking- 
horses with distended eyes and nostrils, the old gentlemen 
at the street doors, standing half doubled up upon their 
failing knees and ankles, the wry-faced nutcrackers, the very 
beasts upon their way into the ark, in twos, like a boarding 
school out walking, might have been imagined to be stricken 
motionless with fantastic wonder, at Dot being false, or 
Tackleton beloved, under any combination of circumstances. 



CHIRP THE THIRD 

The Dutch clock in the corner struck ten when the Car- 
rier sat down by his fireside. So troubled and grief-worn 
that he seemed to scare the cuckoo, who, having cut his ten 
melodious announcements as short as possible, plunged back 
into the Moorish Palace again, and clapped his little door 
behind him, as if the unwonted spectacle were too much for 
his feelings. 

If the little Haymaker had been armed with the sharpest 
of scythes, and had cut at every stroke into the Carrier's 
heart, he never could have gashed and wounded it as Dot 
had done. 



CHIRP THE THIRD 1 63 

It was a heart so full of love for her, so bound up and held 
together by innumerable threads of winning remembrance, 
spun from the daily working of her many qualities of en- 
dearment; it was a heart in which she had enshrined herself 
so gently and so closely; a heart so single and so earnest in 
its truth, so strong in right, so weak in wrong, that it could 
cherish neither passion nor revenge at first, and had only 
room to hold the broken image of its idol. 

But slowly, slowly, as the Carrier sat brooding on his 
hearth, now cold and dark, other and fiercer thoughts began 
to rise within him, as an angry wind comes rising in the night. 
The Stranger was beneath his outraged roof. Three steps 
would take him to his chamber door. One blow would beat 
it in. *'You might do murder before you know it," Tackle- 
ton had said. How could it be murder, if he gave the villain 
time to grapple with him hand to hand .? He was the younger 
man. 

It was an ill-timed thought, bad for the dark mood of 
his mind. It was an angry thought, goading him to some 
avenging act that should change the cheerful house into a 
haunted place which lonely travelers would dread to pass 
by night, and where the timid would see shadows struggling 
in the ruined windows when the moon was dim, and hear 
wild noises in the stormy weather. 

He was the younger man! Yes, yes; some lover who had 
won the heart that he had never touched. Some lover of 
her early choice, of whom she had thought and dreamed, 
for whom she had pined and pined, when he had fancied her 
so happy by his side. Oh, agony to think of it! 

She had been above stairs with the baby, getting it to 
bed. As he sat brooding on the hearth, she came close 
beside him without his knowledge, — in the turning of the 
rack of his great misery, he lost all other sounds, — and put 
her little stool at his feet. He only knew it when he felt her 
hand upon his own, and saw her looking up into his face. 

With wonder.? No. It was his first impression, and he 



164 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

was fain to look at her again to set it right. No, not with 
wonder. With an eager and inquiring look, but not with 
wonder. At first it was alarmed and serious; then it changed 
into a strange, wild, dreadful smile of recognition of his 
thoughts; then there was nothing but her clasped hands on 
her brow, and her bent head and falling hair. 

Though the power of omnipotence had been his to wield 
at that moment, he had too much of its diviner property of 
mercy in his breast to have turned one feather's weight of 
it against her. But he could not bear to see her crouching 
down upon the little seat where he had often looked on her 
with love and pride, so innocent and gay; and when she rose 
and left him, sobbing as she went, he felt it a relief to have 
the vacant place beside him rather than her so long-cherished 
presence. This in itself was anguish keener than all, remind- 
ing him how desolate he was become, and how the great bond 
of his life was rent asunder. 

The more he felt this, and the more he knew he could 
have better borne to see her lying prematurely dead before 
him with her little child upon her breast, the higher and the 
stronger rose his wrath against his enemy. He looked about 
him for a weapon. 

There was a gun hanging on the wall. He took it down, 
and moved a pace or two towards the door of the perfidious 
Stranger's room. He knew the gun was loaded. Some 
shadowy idea that it was just to shoot this man like a wild 
beast seized him, and dilated in his mind until it grew into 
a monstrous demon in complete possession of him, casting 
out all milder thoughts and setting up its undivided empire. 

That phrase is wrong. Not casting out his milder thoughts, 
but artfully transforming them. Changing them into 
scourges to drive him on. Turning water into blood, love into 
hate, gentleness into blind ferocity. Her image, sorrowing, 
humbled, but still pleading to his tenderness and mercy with 
resistless power, never left his mind; but, staying there, it 
urged him to the door; raised the weapon to his shoulder; 



CHIRP THE THIRD 1 65 

fitted and nerved his finger to the trigger; and cried, "Kill 
him! In his bed!" 

He reversed the gun to beat the stock upon the door; 
he already held it lifted in the air; some indistinct design was 
in his thoughts of caUing out to him to fly, for God's sake, 
by the window — 

When, suddenly, the struggling fire illuminated the whole 
chimney with a glow of light; and the Cricket on the Hearth 
began to chirp! 

No sound he could have heard, no human voice, not even 
hers, could so have moved and softened him. The artless 
words in which she had told him of her love for this same 
Cricket were once more freshly spoken; her trembling, 
earnest manner at the moment was again before him; her 
pleasant voice — oh, what a voice it was for making house- 
hold music at the fireside of an honest man! — thrilled 
through and through his better nature, and awoke it into 
life and action. 

He recoiled from the door like a man walking in his sleep, 
awakened from a frightful dream; and put the gun aside. 
Clasping his hands before his face, he then sat down again 
beside the fire, and found relief in tears. 

The Cricket on the Hearth came out into the room, and 
stood in fairy shape before him. 

''" I love it,'" said the fairy Voice, repeating what he well 
remembered, "*for the many times I have heard it, and the 
many thoughts its harmless music has given me.'" 

"She said so!" cried the Carrier. "True!" 

"'This has been a happy home, John; and I love the 
Cricket for its sake!'" 

"It has been, heaven knows," returned the Carrier. "She 
made it happy, always, — until now." 

"So gracefully sweet-tempered; so domestic, joyful, busy, 
and light-hearted!" said the Voice. 

"Otherwise I never could have loved her as I did," re- 
turned the Carrier. 



1 66 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

The Voice, correcting him, said, "Do/' 

The Carrier repeated, ''As I did." But not firmly. His 
faltering tongue resisted his control, and would speak in its 
own way for itself and him. 

The Figure, in an attitude of invocation, raised its hand 
and said: — 

"Upon your own hearth" — 

"The hearth she has blighted," interposed the Carrier. 

"The hearth she has — how often! — blessed and bright- 
ened," said the Cricket; "the hearth which, but for her, 
were only a few stones and bricks and rusty bars, but which 
has been, through her, the altar of your home; on which 
you have nightly sacrificed some petty passion, selfishness, 
or care, and oflFered up the homage of a tranquil mind, a 
trusting nature, and an overflowing heart; so that the smoke 
from this poor chimney has gone upward with a better fra- 
grance than the richest incense that is burned before the rich- 
est shrines in all the gaudy temples of this world ! — Upon 
your own hearth; in its quiet sanctuary; surrounded by its 
gentle influences and associations; hear her! hear me! Hear 
everything that speaks the language of your hearth and 
home!" 

"And pleads for her?" inquired the Carrier. 

"All things that speak the language of your hearth and 
home must plead for her!" returned the Cricket. "For they 
speak the truth." 

And while the Carrier, with his head upon his hands, con- 
tinued to sit meditating in his chair, the Presence stood be- 
side him, suggesting his reflections by its power, and present- 
ing them before him as in a glass or picture. It was not a 
solitary Presence. From the hearthstone, from the chimney, 
from the clock, the pipe, the kettle, and the cradle; from the 
floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the stairs; from the cart 
without, and the cupboard within, and the household im- 
plements; from everything and every place with which she 
had ever been familiar, and with which she had ever entwined 



CHIRP THE THIRD 1 67 

one recollection of herself in her unhappy husband's mind; 
fairies came trooping forth. Not to stand beside him as the 
Cricket did, but to busy and bestir themselves. To do all 
honor to her image. To pull him by the skirts, and point 
to it when it appeared. To cluster round it, and embrace it, 
and strew flowers for it to tread on. To try to crown its fair 
head with their tiny hands. To show that they were fond 
of it, and loved it; and that there was not one ugly, wicked, 
or accusatory creature to claim knowledge of it, — none but 
their playful and approving selves. 

His thoughts were constant to her image. It was always 
there. 

She sat plying her needle, before the fire, and singing to her- 
self. Such a blithe, thriving, steady little Dot! The fairy 
figures turned upon him all at once, by one consent, with 
one prodigious concentrated stare, and seemed to say, ''Is 
this the light wife you are mourning for.^" 

There were sounds of gayety outside, musical instruments, 
and noisy tongues, and laughter. A crowd of young merry- 
makers came pouring in, among whom were May Fielding 
and a score of pretty girls. Dot was the fairest of them all; 
as young as any of them too. They came to summon her 
to join their party. It was a dance. If ever little foot were 
made for dancing, hers was, surely. But she laughed, and 
shook her head, and pointed to her cookery on the fire, and 
her table ready spread; with an exulting defiance that ren- 
dered her more charming than she was before. And so she 
merrily dismissed them, nodding to her would-be partners, 
one by one, as they passed out, with a comical indiff^erence, 
enough to make them go and drown themselves immediately 
if they were her admirers, — and they must have been so, 
more or less; they couldn't help it. And yet indiff^erence was 
not her character. Oh, no! For presently there came a 
certain Carrier to the door; and, bless her, what a welcome 
she bestowed upon him! 

Again the staring figures turned upon him all at once, 



1 68 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

and seemed to say, ''Is this the wife who has forsaken 
your 

A shadow fell upon the mirror or the picture; call it what 
you will. A great shadow of the Stranger, as he first stood 
underneath their roof; covering its surface, and blotting out 
all other objects. But the nimble fairies worked like bees to 
clear it ofF again. And Dot again was there. Still bright 
and beautiful. 

Rocking her little baby in its cradle, singing to it softly, 
and resting her head upon a shoulder which had its counter- 
part in the musing figure by which the fairy Cricket stood. 

The night — I mean the real night, not going by fairy 
clocks — was wearing now; and in this stage of the Carrier's 
thoughts, the moon burst out, and shone brightly in the sky. 
Perhaps some calm and quiet light had risen also, in his mind, 
and he could think more soberly of what had happened. 

Although the shadow of the Stranger fell at intervals upon 
the glass — always distinct, and big, and thoroughly de- 
fined — it never fell so darkly as at first. Whenever it 
appeared, the fairies uttered a general cry of consternation, 
and plied their little arms and legs, with inconceivable 
activity, to rub it out. And whenever they got at Dot again, 
and showed her to him once more, bright and beautiful, they 
cheered in the most inspiring manner. 

They never showed her otherwise than beautiful and 
bright, for they were household spirits to whom falsehood 
is an annihilation; and being so, what Dot was there for them, 
but the one active, beaming, pleasant little creature who had 
been the light and sun of the Carrier's home.f* 

The fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed 
her, with the baby, gossiping among a knot of sage old ma- 
trons, and affecting to be wondrous old and matronly herself, 
and leaning in a staid demure old way upon her husband's 
arm, attempting — she! such a bud of a little woman — to 
convey the idea of having abjured the vanities of the world 
in general, and of being the sort of person to whom it was no 



CHIRP THE THIRD 1 69 

novelty at all to be a mother; yet in the same breath, they 
showed her laughing at the Carrier for being awkward, and 
pulling up his shirt collar to make him smart, and mincing 
merrily about that very room to teach him how to dance! 

They turned, and stared immensely at him when they 
showed her with the Blind Girl; for, though she carried cheer- 
fulness and animation with her wheresoever she went, she 
bore those influences into Caleb Plummer's home, heaped 
up and running over. The Blind Girl's love for her, and trust 
in her, and gratitude to her; her own good busy way of setting 
Bertha's thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for filling up 
each moment of the visit in doing something useful to the 
house, and really working hard while feigning to make hol- 
iday; her bountiful provision of those standing delicacies, 
the veal and ham pie and the bottles of beer; her radiant 
little face arriving at the door, and taking leave; the wonder- 
ful expression in her whole self, from her neat foot to the 
crown of her head, of being a part of the establishment — a 
something necessary to it, which it couldn't be without; all 
this the fairies reveled in, and loved her for. And once again 
they looked upon him all at once, appealingly, and seemed 
to say, while some among them nestled in her dress and fon- 
dled her, "Is this the wife who has betrayed your con- 
fidence?" 

More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful 
night, they showed her to him sitting on her favorite seat, 
with her bent head, her hands clasped on her brow, her falling 
hair. As he had seen her last. And when they found her 
thus, they neither turned nor looked upon him, but gathered 
close round her, and comforted and kissed her, and pressed 
on one another, to show sympathy and kindness to her, and 
forgot him altogether. 

Thus the night passed. The moon went down; the stars 
grew pale; the cold day broke; the sun rose. The Carrier 
still sat, musing, in the chimney corner. He had sat there, 
with his head upon his hands, all night. All night the faith- 



I70 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

ful Cricket had been Chirp, Chirp, Chirping on the hearth. 
All night he had listened to its voice. All night, the house- 
hold fairies had been busy with him. All night, she had been 
amiable and blameless in the glass, except when that one 
shadow fell upon it. 

He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and 
dressed himself. He couldn't go about his customary cheerful 
avocations, — he wanted spirit for them, — but it mattered 
the less, that it was Tackleton's wedding day, and he had 
arranged to make his rounds by proxy. He had thought to 
have gone merrily to church with Dot. But such plans were 
at an end. It was their own wedding day too. Ah! how 
little he had looked for such a close to such a year! 

The Carrier expected that Tackleton would pay him an 
early visit; and he was right. He had not walked to and fro 
before his own door many minutes, when he saw the toy 
merchant coming in his chaise along the road. As the chaise 
drew nearer, he perceived that Tackleton was dressed out 
sprucely for his marriage, and that he had decorated his 
horse's head with flowers and favors. 

The horse looked much more like a bridegroom than 
Tackleton, whose half-closed eye was more disagreeably 
expressive than ever. But the Carrier took little heed of 
this. His thoughts had other occupation. 

"John Peerybingle!" said Tackleton, with an air of con- 
dolence. ''My good fellow, how do you find yourself this 
morning.^" 

*'I have had but a poor night, Master Tackleton," re- 
turned the Carrier, shaking his head: ''for I have been a 
good deal disturbed in my mind. But it's over now! Can 
you spare me half an hour or so, for some private talk.?" 

"I came on purpose," returned Tackleton, alighting. 
"Never mind the horse. He'll stand quiet enough, with 
the reins over this post, if you'll give him a mouthful of hay." 

The Carrier having brought it from his stable and set it 
before him, they turned into the house. 



;3^ 

CHIRP THE THIRD 171 

"You are not married before noon," he said, "I think?" 

"No," answered Tackleton. "Plenty of time. Plenty 
of time." 

When they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was rapping 
at the Stranger's door; which was only removed from it by a 
few steps. One of her very red eyes (for Tilly had been 
crying all night long because her mistress cried) was at the 
keyhole; and she was knocking very loud, and seemed 
frightened. 

"If you please I can't make nobody hear," said Tilly, 
looking round. "I hope nobody an't gone and been and died, 
if you please!" 

This philanthropic wish. Miss Slowboy emphasized with 
various new raps and kicks at the door, which led to no 
result whatever. 

"Shall I go?" said Tackleton. "It's curious." 

The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door, signed 
him to go if he would. 

So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy's relief; and he too 
kicked and knocked; and he too failed to get the least reply. 
But he thought of trying the handle of the door; and as it 
opened easily, he peeped in, looked in, went in, and soon 
came running out again. 

"John Peerybingle," said Tackleton, in his ear, "I hope 
there has been nothing — nothing rash in the night?" 

The Carrier turned upon him quickly. 

"Because he's gone!" said Tackleton; "and the window's 
open. I don't see any marks — to be sure, it's almost on a 
level with the garden; but I was afraid there might have 
been some — some scuffle. Eh?" 

He nearly shut up the expressive eye, altogether; he 
looked at him so hard. And he gave his eye, and his face, and 
his whole person, a sharp twist. As if he would have screwed 
the truth out of him. 

"Make yourself easy," said the Carrier. "He went into 
that room last night, without harm in word or deed from me, 



172 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

and no one has entered it since. He is away of his own free 
will. I'd go out gladly at that door, and beg my bread from 
house to house, for life, if I could so change the past that he 
had never come. But he has come and gone. And I have 
done with him!'' 

*'0h! — Well, I think he has got off pretty easy," said 
Tackleton, taking a chair. 

The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down too, 
and shaded his face with his hand, for some little time, before 
proceeding. 

''You showed me last night," he said at length, ''my wife, 
my wife that I love, secretly" — 

"And tenderly," insinuated Tackleton. 

" — conniving at that man's disguise, and giving him 
opportunities of meeting her alone. I think there's no sight 
I wouldn't have rather seen than that. I think there's no 
man in the world I wouldn't have rather had to show it me." 

"I confess to having had my suspicions always," said 
Tackleton. "And that has made me objectionable here, I 
know." 

"But as you did show it me," pursued the Carrier, not 
minding him; "and as you saw her, my wife, my wife that I 
love," — his voice, and eye, and hand, grew steadier and 
firmer as he repeated these words; evidently in pursuance of 
a steadfast purpose, — "as you saw her at this disadvantage, 
it is right and just that you should also see with my eyes, 
and look into my breast, and know what my mind is upon 
the subject. For it's settled," said the Carrier, regarding 
him attentively. "And nothing can shake it now." 

Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent, about 
its being necessary to vindicate something or other; but he 
was overawed by the manner of his companion. Plain and 
unpolished as it was, it had a something dignified and noble 
in it, which nothing but the soul of generous honor dwelling 
in the man could have imparted. 

"I am a plain, rough man," pursued the Carrier, "with 



CHIRP THE THIRD 1 73 

very little to recommend me. I am not a clever man, as 
you very well know. I am not a young man. I loved my 
little Dot, because I had seen her grow up, from a child, 
in her father's house; because I knew how precious she was; 
because she had been my life, for years and years. There's 
many men I can't compare with, who never could have loved 
my little Dot like me, I think!" 

He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with 
his foot, before resuming: — 

'*I often thought that though I wasn't good enough for 
her, I should make her a kind husband, and perhaps know 
her value better than another; and in this way I reconciled 
it to myself, and came to think it might be possible that we 
should be married. And in the end, it came about, and we 
were married." 

''Hah!" said Tackleton, with a significant shake of his 
head. 

''I had studied myself; I had had experience of myself; 
I knew how much I loved her, and how happy I should be," 
pursued the Carrier. "But I had not — I feel it now — 
sufficiently considered her." 

''To be sure," said Tackleton. "Giddiness, frivolity, 
fickleness, love of admiration! Not considered! All left 
out of sight! Hah!" 

"You had best not interrupt me," said the Carrier, with 
some sternness, "till you understand me; and you're wide 
of doing so. If, yesterday, I'd have struck that man down at 
a blow, who dared to breathe a word against her, to-day I'd 
set my foot upon his face, if he was my brother!" 

The toy merchant gazed at him in astonishment. He went 
on in a softer tone: — 

"Did I consider," said the Carrier, "that I took her — at 
her age, and with her beauty — from her young companions, 
and the many scenes of which she was the ornament, in 
which she was the brightest little star that ever shone, to 
shut her up from day to day in my dull house, and keep my 



174 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

tedious company? Did I consider how little suited I was 
to her sprightly humor, and how wearisome a plodding 
man like me must be, to one of her quick spirit? Did I 
consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me, that I 
loved her when everybody must, who knew her? Never. I 
took advantage of her hopeful nature and her cheerful dis- 
position, and I married her. I wish I never had! For her 
sake; not for mine!" 

The toy merchant gazed at him, without winking. Even 
the half-shut eye was open now. 

"Heaven bless her!'^ said the Carrier, "for the cheerful 
constancy with which she has tried to keep the knowledge 
of this from me! And heaven help me, that, in my slow 
mind, I have not found it out before! Poor child! Poor 
Dot! / not to find it out, who have seen her eyes fill with 
tears, when such a marriage as our own was spoken of! I, 
who have seen the secret trembling on her lips a hundred 
times, and never suspected it till last night! Poor girl! 
That I could ever hope she would be fond of me! That I 
could ever believe she was!" 

"She made a show of it," said Tackleton. "She made 
such a show of it that, to tell you the truth, it was the origin 
of my misgivings." 

And here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding, who 
certainly made no sort of show of being fond of him. 

"She has tried," said the poor Carrier, with greater emo- 
tion that he had exhibited yet. *^I only now begin to know 
how hard she has tried, to be my dutiful and zealous wife. 
How good she has been; how much she has done; how brave 
and strong a heart she has; let the happiness I have known 
under this roof bear witness ! It will be some help and com- 
fort to me when I am here alone." 

"Here alone .f^" said Tackleton. "Oh! Then you do mean 
to take some notice of this?" 

"I mean," returned the Carrier, "to do her the greatest 
kindness, and make her the best reparation, in my power. I 



CHIRP THE THIRD 1 75 

can release her from the daily pain of an unequal marriage, 
and the struggle to conceal it. She shall be as free as I can 
render her." 

''Make A^r. reparation!" exclaimed Tackleton, twisting 
and turning his great ears with his hands. ''There must be 
something wrong here. You didn't say that, of course." 

The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the toy merchant, 
and shook him like a reed. 

"Listen to me!" he said. "And take care that you hear 
me right. Listen to me. Do I speak plainly .f*" 

"Very plainly indeed," answered Tackleton. 

"As if I meant it.?" 

"Very much as if you meant it." 

"I sat upon that hearth, last night, all night," exclaimed 
tH^ Carrier. "On the spot where she has often sat beside 
me, with her sweet face looking into mine. I called up her 
whole life, day by day. I had her dear self, in its every pas- 
sage, in review before me. And upon my soul she is inno- 
cent, if there is One to judge the innocent and guilty!" 

Stanch Cricket on the Hearth! Loyal Household Fairies! 

"Passion and distrust have left me!" said the Carrier; 
"and nothing but my grief remains. In an unhappy moment 
some old lover, better suited to her tastes and years than I, — 
forsaken, perhaps, for me, against her will, — returned. In 
an unhappy moment, taken by surprise, and wanting time 
to think of what she did, she made herself a party to his 
treachery, by concealing it. Last night she saw him in the 
interview we witnessed. It was wrong. But otherwise 
than this, she is innocent if there is truth on earth!" 

"If that is your opinion" — Tackleton began. 

"So, let her go!" pursued the Carrier. "Go, with my 
blessing for the many happy hours she has given me, and 
my forgiveness for any pang she has caused me. Let her 
go, and have the peace of mind I wish her! She'll never 
hate me. She'll learn to like me better, when I'm not a 
drag upon her, and she wears the chain I have riveted more 



176 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

lightly. This is the day on which I took her, with so little 
thought for her enjoyment, from her home. To-day she 
shall return to it, and I will trouble her no more. Her father 
and mother will be here to-day — we had made a little 
plan for keeping it together — and they shall take her home. 
I can trust her, there, or anywhere. She leaves me without 
blame, and she will live so, I am sure. If I should die — I 
may, perhaps, while she is still young; I have lost some 
courage in a few hours — she'll find that I remembered her, 
and loved her till the last! This is the end of what you 
showed me. Now, it's over!" 

"Oh, no, John, not over! Do not say it's over yet! Not 
quite yet. I have heard your noble words. I could not steal 
away, pretending to be ignorant of what has affected me 
with such deep gratitude. Do not say it's over till the clock 
has struck again!" 

She had entered shortly after Tackleton, and had remained 
there. She never looked at Tackleton, but fixed her eyes 
upon her husband. But she kept away from him, setting 
as wide a space as possible between them; and though she 
spoke with most impassioned earnestness, she went no 
nearer to him even then. How diflPerent in this from her 
old self! 

"No hand can make the clock which will strike again for 
me the hours that are gone," replied the Carrier with a faint 
smile. "But let it be so, if you will, my dear. It will strike 
soon. It's of little matter what we say. I'd try to please you 
in a harder case than that." 

"Well!" muttered Tackleton. "I must be off, for when 
the clock strikes again, it'll be necessary for me to be upon 
my way to church. Good morning, John Peerybingle. I'm 
sorry to be deprived of the pleasure of your company. Sorry 
for the loss and the occasion of it, too!" 

"I have spoken plainly?" said the Carrier, accompanying 
him to the door. 

"Oh, quite!" 



CHIRP THE THIRD 1 77 

"And you'll remember what I have said?" 

"Why, if you compel me to make the observation/' said 
Tackleton, previously taking the precaution of getting into 
his chaise, "I must say that it was so very unexpected that 
I'm far from being likely to forget it." 

"The better for us both," returned the Carrier. "Good- 
by. I give you joy!" 

"I wish I could give it to youy^ said Tackleton. "As I 
can't, thankee. Between ourselves (as I told you before, 
eh.f*) I don't much think I shall have the less joy in my mar- 
ried life because May hasn't been too officious about me, 
and too demonstrative. Good-by! Take care of yourself." 

The Carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller 
in the distance than his horse's flowers and favors near at 
hand; and then, with a deep sigh, went strolling, like a rest- 
less, broken man, among some neighboring elms; unwilling 
to return until the clock was on the eve of striking. 

His little wife, being left alone, sobbed piteously, but often 
dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how good he was, 
how excellent he was! and once or twice she laughed; so 
heartily, triumphantly, and incoherently (still crying all the 
time), that Tilly was quite horrified. 

"Ow, if you please, don't!" said Tilly. "It's enough to 
dead and bury the baby, so it is, if you please." 

"Will you bring him sometimes to see his father, Tilly,'* 
inquired her mistress, drying her eyes; "when I can't live 
here, and have gone to my old home.^" 

"Ow, if you please, don't!" cried Tilly, throwing back her 
head, and bursting out into a howl, — she looked at the 
moment uncommonly like Boxer. "Ow, if you please, don't! 
Ow, what has everybody gone and been and done with every- 
body, making everybody else so wretched } Ow-w-w-w! " 

The soft-hearted Slowboy tailed off^ at this juncture into 
such a deplorable howl, the more tremendous from its long 
suppression, that she must infallibly have awakened the 
baby and frightened him into something serious (probably 



178 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

convulsions), if her eyes had not encountered Caleb Plummer, 
leading in his daughter. This spectacle restoring her to a 
sense of the proprieties, she stood for some few moments 
silent, with her mouth wide open; and then, posting oflF to 
the bed on which the baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, 
St. Vitus manner on the floor, and at the same time rum- 
maged with her face and head among the bedclothes, ap- 
parently deriving much relief from those extraordinary 
operations. 

*'Mary!" said Bertha. "Not at the marriage!" 

**I told her you would not be there, mum," whispered 
Caleb. *'I heard as much last night. But bless you," said 
the little man, taking her tenderly by both hands, *'/ don't 
care for what they say. / don't believe them. There an't 
much of me, but that little should be torn to pieces sooner 
than I'd trust a word against you!" 

He put his arms about her neck and hugged her, as a 
child might have hugged one of his own dolls. 

*' Bertha couldn't stay at home this morning," said Caleb. 
"She was afraid, I know, to hear the bells ring, and couldn't 
trust herself to be so near them on their wedding day. So 
we started in good time, and came here. I have been think- 
ing of what I have done," said Caleb, after a moment's 
pause; "I have been blaming myself till I hardly knew what 
to do or where to turn, for the distress of mind I have caused 
her; and I've come to the conclusion that I'd better, if you'll 
stay with me, mum, the while, tell her the truth. You'll 
stay with me the while.?*" he inquired, trembling from head 
to foot. "I don't know what eff'ect it may have upon her; 
I don't know what she'll think of me; I don't know that she'll 
ever care for her poor father afterwards. But it's best for 
her that she should be undeceived, and I must bear the 
consequences as I deserve!" 

"Mary," said Bertha, "where is your hand. ^ Ah! Here it 
is; here it is!" pressing it to her lips, with a smile, and draw- 
ing it through her arm. "I heard them speaking softly 



CHIRP THE THIRD 1 79 

among themselves last night, of some blame against you. 
They were wrong." 

The Carrier's wife was silent. Caleb answered for her. 

*'They were wrong," he said. 

"I knew it!" cried Bertha proudly. "I told them so. I 
scorned tohear a word! Blame A^r with justice!" She pressed 
the hand between her own, and the soft cheek against her 
face. *'No! I am not so blind as that." 

Her father went on one side of her, while Dot remained 
upon the other, holding her hand. 

*'I know you all," said Bertha, *' better than you think. 
But none so well as her. Not even you, father. There is 
nothing half so real and so true about me as she is. If I 
could be restored to sight this instant, and not a word were 
spoken, I could choose her from a crowd! My sister!" 

^'Bertha, my dear!" said Caleb. *'I have something on 
my mind I want to tell you, while we three are alone. Hear 
me kindly! I have a confession to make to you, my darling." 

"A confession, father.?" 

"I have wandered from the truth and lost myself, my 
child," said Caleb, with a pitiable expression in his bewildered 
face. '*I have wandered from the truth, intending to be 
kind to you; and have been cruel." 

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him, and 
repeated, '* Cruel!" 

'*He accuses himself too strongly. Bertha," said Dot. 
** You'll say so presently. You'll be the first to tell him so." 

"He cruel to me!" cried Bertha, with a smile of incre- 
dulity. 

"Not meaning it, my child," said Caleb. "But I have 
been; though I never suspected it till yesterday. My dear 
blind daughter, hear me and forgive me. The world you live 
in, heart of mine, doesn't exist as I have represented it. The 
eyes you have trusted in have been false to you." 

She turned her wonder-stricken face towards him still; 
but drew back, and clung closer to her friend. 



l8o THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

''Your road in life was rough, my poor one," said Caleb, 
''and I meant to smooth it for you. I have altered objects, 
changed the characters of people, invented many things that 
never have been, to make you happier. I have had conceal- 
ments from you, put deceptions on you, God forgive me! and 
surrounded you with fancies." 

"But living people are not fancies .f*" she said hurriedly, 
and turning very pale, and still retiring from him. ''You 
can't change them." 

"I have done so. Bertha," pleaded Caleb. "There is 
one person that you know, my dove" — 

"Oh, father! why do you say I know.?" she answered, in 
a term of keen reproach. "What and whom do / know.? 
I who have no leader! I so miserably blind!" 

In the anguish of her heart, she stretched out her hands, 
as if she were groping her way; then spread them, in a man- 
ner most forlorn and sad, upon her face. 

"The marriage that takes place to-day," said Caleb, "is 
with a stern, sordid, grinding man. A hard master to you 
and me, my dear, for many years. Ugly in his looks, and in 
his nature. Cold and callous always. Unlike what I have 
painted him to you in everything, my child. In everything." 

"Oh, why," cried the Blind Girl, tortured, as it seemed, 
almost beyond endurance, "why did you ever do this.? Why 
did you ever fill my heart so full, and then come in like death, 
and tear away the objects of my love.? O heaven, how 
blind I am! How helpless and alone!" 

Her afflicted father hung his head, and offered no reply 
but in his penitence and sorrow. 

She had been but a short time in this passion of regret, • 
when the Cricket on the Hearth, unheard by all but her, 
began to chirp. Not merrily, but in a low, faint, sorrowing 
way. It was so mournful that her tears began to flow; and 
when the Presence which had been beside the Carrier all 
night appeared behind her, pointing to her father, they fell 
down like rain. 



CHIRP THE THIRD l8l 

She heard the Cricket voice more plainly soon, and was 
conscious, through her blindness, of the Presence hovering 
about her father. 

**Mary," said the Blind Girl, ''tell me what my home is. 
What it truly is." 

*'It is a poor place, Bertha; very poor and bare indeed. 
The house will scarcely keep out wind and rain another 
winter. It is as roughly shielded from the weather. Bertha,^' 
Dot continued in a low, clear voice, ''as your poor father 
in his sackcloth coat." 

The Blind Girl, greatly agitated, rose, and led. the Car- 
rier's little wife aside. 

"Those presents that I took such care of; that came 
almost at my wish, and were so dearly welcome to me," she 
said, trembling; "where did they come from.? Did you send 
them.?" 

"No." 
7" Who, then?" 

Dot saw she knew already, and was silent. The Blind 
Girl spread her hands before her face again. But in quite 
another manner now. 

"Dear Mary, a moment. One moment. More this way. 
Speak softly to me. You are true, I know. You'd not de- 
ceive me now; would you.?" 

"No, Bertha, indeed!" 

"No, I am sure you would not. You have too much pity 
for me. Mary, look across the room to where we were just 
now — to where my father is — my father, so compassionate 
and loving to me — and tell me what you see." 

"I see," said Dot, who understood her well, "an old man 
sitting in a chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back, with 
his face resting on his hand. As if his child should comfort 
him. Bertha." 

"Yes, yes. She will. Go on.'* 

"He is an old man, worn with care and work. He is a 
spare, dejected, thoughtful, gray-haired man. I see him 



l82 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

now, despondent and bowed down, and striving against 
nothing. But, Bertha, I have seen him many times before, 
and striving hard in many ways for one great sacred object. 
And I honor his gray head, and bless him!" 

The BHnd Girl broke away from her; and throwing her- 
self upon her knees before him, took the gray head to her 
breast. 

"It is my sight restored. It is my sight!" she cried. "I 
have been blind, and now my eyes are open. I never knew 
.him! To think I might have died, and never truly seen the 
father who has been so loving to me!" 

There were no words for Caleb's emotion. 

"There is not a gallant figure on this earth," exclaimed 
the Blind Girl, holding him in her embrace, "that I would 
love so dearly, and would cherish so devotedly, as this! 
The grayer, and more worn, the dearer, father! Never let 
them say I am blind again. There's not a furrow in his face, 
there's not a hair upon his head, that shall be forgotten in 
my prayers and thanks to heaven!" 

Caleb managed to articulate, "My Bertha!" 

"And in my blindness, I believed him," said the girl, 
caressing him with tears of exquisite affection, "to be so 
different! And having him beside me, day by day, so mind- 
ful of me always, never dreamed of this!" 

"The fresh smart father in the blue coat. Bertha," said 
poor Caleb. "He's gone!" 

"Nothing is gone," she answered.- "Dearest father, no! 
Everything is here — in you. The father that I loved so 
well; the father that I never loved enough, and never knew; 
the benefactor whom I first began to reverence and love, 
because he had such sympathy for me; all are here in you. 
Nothing is dead to me. The soul of all that was most dear 
to me is here — here, with the worn face, and the gray head. 
And I am not blind, father, any longer!" 

Dot's whole attention had been concentrated, during 
this discourse, upon the father and daughter; but looking, 



I 

I 



CHIRP THE THIRD 183 

now, towards the little Haymaker in the Moorish meadow, 
she saw that the clock was within a few minutes of striking, 
and fell, immediately, into a nervous and excited state. 

''Father," said Bertha, hesitating. ''Mary." 

"Yes, my dear," returned Caleb. "Here she is." 

"There is no change in her. You never told me anything 
of her that was not true .? " 

"I should have done it, my dear, I am afraid," returned 
Caleb, "if I could have made her better than she was. But 
I must have changed her for the worse, if I had changed 
her at all. Nothing could improve her. Bertha." 

Confident as the Blind Girl had been when she asked 
the question, her delight and pride in the reply, and her 
renewed embrace of Dot, were charming to behold. 

"More changes than you think for, may happen, though, 
my dear," said Dot. "Changes for the better, I mean; 
changes for great joy to some of us. You mustn't let them 
startle you too much, if any such should ever happen, and 
affect you. Are those wheels upon the road.f* You've a 
quick ear. Bertha. Are they wheels .f^" 

"Yes. Coming very fast." 

"I — I — I know you have a quick ear," said Dot, placing 
her hand upon her heart, and evidently talking on, as fast 
as she could, to hide its palpitating state, "because I have 
noticed it often, and because you were so quick to find out 
that strange step last night. Though why you should have 
said, as I very well recollect you did say. Bertha, 'Whose 
step is that?' and why you should have taken any greater 
observation of it than of any other step, I don't know. 
Though, as I said just now, there are great changes in the 
world, great changes, and we can't do better than prepare 
ourselves to be surprised at hardly anything." 

Caleb wondered what this meant, perceiving that she spoke 
to him, no less than to his daughter. He saw her, with aston- 
ishment, so fluttered and distressed that she could scarcely 
breathe; and holding to a chair, to save herself from falling. 



1 84 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

*'They are wheels indeed!" she panted. "Coming nearer! 
Nearer! Very close! And now you hear them stopping at 
the garden gate! And now you hear a step outside the 
door, — the same step, Bertha, is it not? — and now" — 

She uttered a wild cry of uncontrollable delight; and 
running up to Caleb, put her hands upon his eyes, as a young 
man rushed into the room, and, flinging away his hat into 
the air, came sweeping down upon them. 

''Is it over?" cried Dot. 

"Yes!" 

"Happily over?" 

"Yes!" 

"Do you recollect the voice, dear Caleb? Did you ever 
hear the like of it before?" cried Dot. 

"If my boy in the golden South Americas was alive" — 
said Caleb, trembling. 

"He is alive!" shrieked Dot, removing her hands from his 
eyes, and clapping them in ecstasy. "Look at him! See 
where he stands before you, healthy and strong! Your 
own dear son. Your own dear living, loving brother. 
Bertha!" 

All honor to the little creature for her transports! All 
honor to her tears and laughter, when the three were locked 
in one another's arms! All honor to the heartiness with 
which she met the sunburnt sailor-fellow, with his dark 
streaming hair, halfway, and never turned her rosy little 
mouth aside, but suffered him to kiss it, freely, and to press 
her to his bounding heart! 

And honor to the Cuckoo too — why not ? — for bursting 
out of the trapdoor in the Moorish Palace like a house- 
breaker, and hiccuping twelve times on the assembled com- 
pany, as if he had got drunk for joy! 

The Carrier, entering, started back. And well he might, 
to find himself in such good company. 

"Look, John!" said Caleb exultingly, "look here! My own 
boy, from the golden South Americas! My own son! Him 



CHIRP THE THIRD 1 85 

that you fitted out, and sent away yourself! Him that you 
were always such a friend to!" 

The Carrier advanced to seize him by the hand; but, 
recoiling, as some feature in his face awakened a remembrance 
of the Deaf Man in the cart, said: — 

"Edward! Was it you?" 

"Now tell him all!" cried Dot. "Tell him all, Edward; 
and don't spare me, for nothing shall make me spare myself 
in his eyes, ever again." 

"I was the man," said Edward. 

"And could you steal, disguised, into the house of your 
old friend?" rejoined the Carrier. "There was a frank boy 
once — how many years is it, Caleb, since we heard that he 
was dead, and had it proved, we thought? — who never 
would have done that." 

"There was a generous friend of mine, once, more a father 
to me than a friend," said Edward, "who never would have 
judged me, or any other man, unheard. You were he. So I 
am certain you will hear me now." 

The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept 
far away from him, replied, "Well! that's but fair. I will." 

"You must know that when I left here, a boy," said Ed- 
ward, "I was in love, and my love was returned. She was a 
very young girl, who perhaps (you may tell me) didn't know 
her own mind. But I knew mine, and I had a passion for 
her." 

"You had!" exclaimed the Carrier. "You!** 

"Indeed I had," returned the other. "And she returned it. 
I have ever since believed she did, and now I am sure she did." 

"Heaven help me!" said the Carrier. "This is worse than 
all." 

"Constant to her," said Edward, "and returning, full of 
hope, after many hardships and perils, to redeem my part 
of our old contract, I heard, twenty miles away, that she was 
false to me; that she had forgotten me; and had bestowed 
herself upon another and a richer man. I had no mind to 



1 86 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

reproach her; but I wished to see her, and to prove beyond 
dispute that this was true. I hoped she might have been 
forced into it, against her own desire and recollection. It 
would be small comfort, but it would be some, I thought, and 
on I came. That I might have the truth, the real truth, — 
observing freely for myself, and judging for myself, without 
obstruction on the one hand, or presenting my own influence 
(if I had any) before her, on the other, — I dressed myself 
unlike myself — you know how; and waited on the road — 
you know where. You had no suspicion of me; neither had — 
had she," pointing to Dot, ''until I whispered in her ear at 
that fireside, and she so nearly betrayed me." 

"But when she knew that Edward was alive, and had 
come back," sobbed Dot, now speaking for herself, as she 
had burned to do, all through this narrative; ''and when 
she knew his purpose, she advised him by all means to keep 
his secret close; for his old friend John Peerybingle was much 
too open in his nature, and too clumsy in all artifice — being 
a clumsy man in general," said Dot, half laughing and half 
crying — "to keep it for him. And when she — that's me, 
John," sobbed the little woman — "told him all, and how 
his sweetheart had believed him to be dead; and how she had 
at last been over-persuaded by her mother into a marriage 
which the silly, dear old thing called advantageous; and 
when she — that's me again, John — told him they were not 
yet married (though close upon it), and that it would be 
nothing but a sacrifice if it went on, for there was no love on 
her side; and when he went nearly mad with joy to hear it; 
then she — that's me again — said she would go between 
them, as she had often done before in old times, John, and 
would sound his sweetheart and be sure that what she — 
me again, John — said and thought was right. And it was 
right, John! And they were brought together, John! And 
they were married, John, an hour ago! And here's the 
bride! And Gruff and Tackleton may die a bachelor! And 
I'm a happy little woman. May, God bless you!" 



CHIRP THE THIRD 1 87 

She was an irresistible little woman, if that be anything 
to the purpose; and never so completely irresistible as in 
her present transports. There never were congratulations 
so endearing and delicious as those she lavished on herself 
and on the bride. 

Amid the tumult of emotions in his breast, the honest 
Carrier had stood confounded. Flying, now, towards her, 
Dot stretched out her hand to stop him, and retreated as 
before. 

*'No, John, no! Hear all! Don't love me any more, 
John, till you've heard every word I have to say. It was 
wrong to have a secret from you, John. I'm very sorry. I 
didn't think it any harm, till I came and sat down by you 
on the little stool last night. But when I knew by what 
was written in your face that you had seen me walking in 
the gallery with Edward, and when I knew what you thought, 
I felt how giddy and how wrong it was. But oh, dear John, 
how could you, could you think soV 

Little woman, how she sobbed again! John Peerybingle 
would have caught her in his arms. But no; she wouldn't 
let him. 

"Don't love me yet, please, John! Not for a long time 
yet! When I was sad about this intended marriage, dear, 
it was because I remembered May and Edward such young 
lovers; and knew that her heart was far away from Tackle- 
ton. You believe that, now don't you, John?" 

John was going to make another rush at this appeal; 
but she stopped him again. 

**No; keep there, please, John! When I laugh at you, as I 
sometimes do, John, and call you clumsy and a dear old 
goose, and names of that sort, it's because I love you, John, 
so well, and take such pleasure in your ways, and wouldn't 
see you altered in the least respect to have you made a king 
to-morrow." 

"Hooroar!" said Caleb with unusual vigor. *'My opin- 
ion!" 



1 88 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

"And when I speak of people being middle-aged and 
steady, John, and pretend that we are a humdrum couple, 
going on in a jog-trot sort of way, it's only because Fm such 
a silly little thing, John, that I like, sometimes, to act as a 
kind of play with baby, and all that, and make believe." 

She saw that he was coming; and stopped him again. But 
she was very nearly too late. 

'^No, don't love me for another minute or two, if you 
please, John! What I want most to tell you, I have kept 
to the last. My dear, good, generous John, when we were 
talking the other night about the Cricket, I had it on my 
lips to say that at first I did not love you quite so dearly as 
I do now; when I first came home here, I was half afraid that 
I mightn't learn to love you every bit as well as I hoped and 
prayed I might — being so very young, John. But, dear 
John, every day and hour I loved you more and more. And 
if I could have loved you better than I do, the noble words 
I heard you say this morning would have made me. But 1 
can't. All the affection that I had (it was a great deal, 
John) I gave you, as you well deserve, long, long ago, and 
I have no more left to give. Now, my dear husband, take 
me to your heart again! That's my home, John; and never, 
never think of sending me to any other!" 

You never will derive so much delight from seeing a glorious 
little woman in the arms of a third party as you would have 
felt if you had seen Dot run into the Carrier's embrace. 
It was the most complete, unmitigated, soul-fraught little 
piece of earnestness that ever you beheld in all your days. 

You may be sure the Carrier was in a state of perfect 
rapture; and you may be sure Dot was likewise; and you 
may be sure they all were, inclusive of Miss Slowboy, who 
wept copiously for joy, and, wishing to include her young 
charge in the general interchange of congratulations, handed 
round the baby to everybody in succession, as if it were 
something to drink. 

But, now, the sound of wheels was heard again outside 



CHIRP THE THIRD 1 89 

the door; and somebody exclaimed that GrufF and Tackleton 
was coming back. Speedily that worthy gentleman ap- 
peared, looking warm and flustered. 

"Why, what the devil's this, John Peerybingle.?" said 
Tackleton. '* There's some mistake. I appointed Mrs. 
Tackleton to meet me at the church, and Til swear I passed 
her on the road, on her way here. Oh! here she is! I beg 
your pardon, sir; I haven't the pleasure of knowing you; 
but if you can do me the favor to spare this young lady, she 
has rather a particular engagement this morning." 

"But I can't spare her," returned Edward. "I couldn't 
think of it." 

"What do you mean, you vagabond.?" said Tackleton. 

"I mean that, as I can make allowance for your being 
vexed," returned the other with a smile, "I am as. deaf to 
harsh discourse this morning, as I was to all discourse last 
night." 

The look that Tackleton bestowed upon him, and the 
start he gave! 

"I am sorry, sir," said Edward, holding out May's left 
hand, and especially the third finger, "that the young lady 
can't accompany you to church; but as she has been there 
once this morning, perhaps you'll excuse her." 

Tackleton looked hard at the third finger, and took a 
little piece of silver paper, apparently containing a ring, 
from his waistcoat pocket. 

"Miss Slowboy," said Tackleton, "will you have the 
kindness to throw that in the fire? Thankee." 

"It was a previous engagement, quite an old engagement, 
that prevented my wife from keeping her appointment with 
you, I assure you," said Edward. 

"Mr. Tackleton will do me the justice to acknowledge 
that I revealed it to him faithfully; and that I told him, 
many times, I never could forget it," said May, blushing. 

"Oh, certainly!" said Tackleton. "Oh, to be sure. Oh, it's 
all right, it's quite correct. Mrs. Edward Plummer, I infer?" 



I go THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

"That's the name/' returned the bridegroom. 

"Ah! I shouldn't have known you, sir," said Tackleton, 
scrutinizing his face narrowly, and making a low bow. "I 
give you joy, sir!" 

"Thankee." 

"Mrs. Peerybingle," said Tackleton, turning suddenly 
to where she stood with her husband; "I'm sorry. You 
haven't done me a very great kindness, but, upon my life, 
I am sorry. You are better than I thought you. John 
Peerybingle, I am sorry. You understand me; that's enough. 
It's quite correct, ladies and gentlemen all, and perfectly 
satisfactory. Good morning!" 

With these words he carried it off, and carried himself off 
too, merely stopping at the door, to take the flowers and 
favors from his horse's head, and to kick that animal once, 
in the ribs, as a means of informing him that there was a 
screw loose in his arrangements. 

Of course, it became a serious duty now to make such a 
day of it as should mark these events for a high feast and 
festival in the Peerybingle calendar forevermore. Accord- 
ingly, Dot went to work to produce such an entertain- 
ment as should reflect undying honor on the house and on 
every one concerned; and in a very short space of time she 
was up to her dimpled elbows in flour, and whitening the 
Carrier's coat, every time he came near her, by stopping him 
to give him a kiss. That good fellow washed the greens, 
and peeled the turnips, and broke the plates, and upset iron 
pots full of cold water on the fire, and made himself useful 
in all sorts of ways; while a couple of professional assistants, 
hastily called in from somewhere in the neighborhood, as 
on a point of life or death, ran against each other in all the 
doorways and round all the corners, and everybody tumbled 
over Tilly Slowboy and the baby, everywhere. Tilly never 
came out in such force before. Her ubiquity was the theme 
of general admiration. She was a stumblingblock in the 
passage at five and twenty minutes past two; a mantrap in 



CHIRP THE THIRD I91 

the kitchen at half past two precisely; and a pitfall in the 
garret at five and twenty minutes to three. The baby's 
head was, as it were, a test and touchstone for every descrip- 
tion of matter, animal, vegetable, and mineral. Nothing 
was in use that day that didn't come, at some time or other, 
into close acquaintance with it. 

Then there was a great expedition set on foot to go and 
find out Mrs. Fielding; and to be dismally penitent to that 
excellent gentlewoman; and to bring her back, by force, if 
needful, to be happy and forgiving. And when the expedi- 
tion first discovered her, she would listen to no terms at all, 
but said, an unspeakable number of times, that ever she 
should have lived to see the day! and couldn't be got to say 
anything else, except ''Now carry me to the grave"; which 
seemed absurd, on account of her not being dead, or any- 
thing at all like it. After a time she lapsed into a state of 
dreadful calmness, and observed that when that unfortunate 
train of circumstances had occurred in the indigo trade, 
she had foreseen that she would be exposed, during her whole 
life, to every species of insult and contumely; and that she 
was glad to find it was the case; and begged they wouldn't 
trouble themselves about her, — for what was she.? — oh, 
dear! a nobody! — but would forget that such a being lived 
and would take their course in life without her. From this 
bitterly sarcastic mood, she passed into an angry one, in 
which she gave vent to the remarkable expression that the 
worm would turn if trodden on; and, after that, she yielded 
to a soft regret, and said, if they had only given her their 
confidence, whaf might she not have had it in her power to 
suggest! Taking advantage of this crisis in her feelings, the 
expedition embraced her; and she very soon had her gloves 
on, and was on her way to John Peerybingle's in a state of 
unimpeachable gentility; with a paper parcel at her side 
containing a cap of state, almost as tall, and quite as stiflF, 
as a miter. 

Then, there were Dot's father and mother to come, in 



192 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

another little chaise; and they were behind their time; and 
fears were entertained; and there was much looking out for 
them down the road; and Mrs. Fielding always would look 
in the wrong and morally impossible direction; and being 
apprised thereof, hoped she might take the liberty of look- 
ing where she pleased. At last they came; a chubby little 
couple, jogging along in a snug and comfortable little way 
that quite belonged to the Dot family; and Dot and her 
mother, side by side, were wonderful to see.. They were so 
like each other. 

Then, Dot's mother had to renew her acquaintance with 
May's mother; and May's mother always stood on her gen- 
tility; and Dot's mother never stood on anything but her 
active little feet. And old Dot — so to call Dot's father, 
I forgot it wasn't his right name, but never mind — took 
liberties, and shook hands at first sight, and seemed to think 
a cap but so much starch and muslin, and didn't defer him- 
self at all to the indigo trade, but said there was no help 
for it now; and, in Mrs. Fielding's summing up, was a good- 
natured kind of man — but coarse, my dear. 

I wouldn't have missed Dot, doing the honors in her wed- 
ding gown, my benison on her bright face! for any money. 
No! nor the good Carrier, so jovial and so ruddy, at the bot- 
tom of the table. Nor the brown, fresh sailor-fellow, and 
his handsome wife. Nor any one among them. To have 
missed the dinner would have been to miss as jolly and as 
stout a meal as man need eat; and to have missed the over- 
flowing cups in which they drank The Wedding Day would" 
have been the greatest miss of all. 

After dinner, Caleb sang the song about the Sparkling 
Bowl. As I'm a living man, hoping to keep so for a year or 
two, he sang it through. 

And by the bye, a most unlooked-for incident occurred, 
just as he finished the last verse. 

There was a tap at the door; and a man came staggering 
in, without saying with your leave, or by your leave, with 



CHIRP THE THIRD 1 93 

something heavy on his head. Setting this down in the 
middle of the table, symmetrically in the center of the nuts 
and apples, he said: — 

*'Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and as he hasn't got 
no use for the cake himself, p'raps you'll eat it." 

And, with those words, he walked off. 

There was some surprise among the company, as you may 
imagine. Mrs. Fielding, being a lady of infinite discern- 
ment, suggested that the cake was poisoned, and related a 
narrative of a cake which, within her knowledge, had turned 
a seminary for young ladies blue. But she was overruled 
by acclamation; and the cake was cut by May, with much 
ceremony and rejoicing. 

I don't think any one had tasted it, when there came 
another tap at the door, and the same man appeared again, 
having under his arm a vast brown-paper parcel. 

"Mr. Tackleton's compliments, and he's sent a few toys 
for the babby. They an't ugly." 

After the delivery of which expressions, he retired again. 

The whole party would have experienced great difficulty 
in finding words for their astonishment, even if they had 
had ample time to seek them. But they had none at all; 
for the messenger had scarcely shut the door behind him, 
when there came another tap, and Tackleton himself 
walked in. 

''Mrs. Peerybingle!" said the toy merchant, hat in hand, 
'Tm sorry. I'm more sorry than I was this morning. I 
have had time to think of it. John Peerybingle! I am sour 
by disposition; but I can't help being sweetened, more or 
less, by coming face to face with such a man as you. Caleb! 
This unconscious little nurse gave me a broken hint last 
night, of which I have found the thread. I blush to think 
how easily I might have bound you and your daughter to 
me, and what a miserable idiot I was, when I took her for 
one! Friends, one and all, my house is very lonely to-night. 
I have not so much as a Cricket on my Hearth. I have 



194 THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH 

scared them all away. Be gracious to me; let me join this 
happy party!" 

He was at home in five minutes. You never saw such a 
fellow. What had he been doing with himself all his life, 
never to have known, before, his great capacity of being 
jovial.? Or what had the fairies been doing with him, to 
have effected such a change? 

"John! you won't send me home this evening; will you?" 
whispered Dot. 

He had been very near it though. 

There wanted but one living creature to make the party 
complete; and, in the twinkling of an eye, there he was, very 
thirsty with hard running, and engaged in hopeless endeavors 
to squeeze his head into a narrow pitcher. He had gone with 
the cart to its journey's end, very much disgusted with the 
absence of his master, and stupendously rebellious to the 
deputy. After lingering about the stable for some little 
time, vainly attempting to incite the old horse to the muti- 
nous act of returning on his own account, he had walked into 
the taproom and laid himself down before the fire. But 
suddenly yielding to the conviction that the deputy was a 
humbug, and must be abandoned, he had got up again, turned 
tail, and come home. 

There was a dance in the evening. With which general 
mention of that recreation, I should have left it alone, if I 
had not some reason to suppose that it was quite an original 
dance, and one of a most uncommon figure. It was formed 
in an odd way; in this way: 

Edward, that sailor-fellow, — a good free dashing sort 
of fellow he was, — had been telling them various marvels 
concerning parrots, and mines, and Mexicans, and gold 
dust, when all at once he took it in his head to jump up from 
his seat and propose a dance; for Bertha's harp was there, 
and she had such a hand upon it as you seldom hear. Dot 
(sly little piece of affectation when she chose) said her danc- 
ing days were over; / think because the Carrier was smoking 



CHIRP THE THIRD 1 95 

his pipe, and she liked sitting by him best. Mrs. Fielding 
had no choice, of course, but to say her dancing days were 
over, after that; and everybody said the same, except May; 
May was ready. 

So, May and Edward get up, amid great applause, to 
dance alone; and Bertha plays her liveliest tune. 

Well! if you'll believe me, they had not been dancing five 
minutes when suddenly the Carrier flings his pipe away, 
takes Dot round the waist, dashes out into the room, and 
starts oflF with her, toe and heel, quite wonderfully. Tackle- 
ton no sooner sees this than he skims across to Mrs. Fielding, 
takes her round the waist, and follows suit. Old Dot no 
sooner sees this than up he is, all alive, whisks oflP Mrs. Dot 
into the middle of the dance, and is the foremost there. 
Caleb no sooner sees this than he clutches Tilly Slowboy by 
both hands, and goes off^ at score; Miss Slowboy firm in the 
belief that diving hotly in among the other couples, and 
eflFecting any number of concussions with them, is your only 
principle of footing it. 

Hark! how the Cricket joins the music with its Chirp, 
Chirp, Chirp; and how the Kettle hums! 

But what is this? Even as I listen to them, blithely, and 
turn towards Dot, for one last glimpse of a little figure very 
pleasant to me, she and the rest have vanished into air, and 
I am left alone. A Cricket sings upon the Hearth; a broken 
child's toy lies upon the ground; and nothing else remains. 



NOTES 

(The numbers in heavy type refer to the pages.) 

15. Christmas Carol. Dickens gave this name to the story be- 
cause it breathes the spirit of Christmas joy. Stave. An old name 
for a section, or stanza, of a song, clerk. In the Church of Eng- 
land, a layman holding an official position which requires him to 
lead in the reading of the responses and to perform other duties. 
'Change. A common abbreviation for the London Stock Exchange. 
wisdom, etc. That is, **the expression, dead as a doornaily comes 
from our ancestors and, therefore, must be wise." Perhaps, an iron- 
ical allusion to unprogressive persons who consider all old customs 
necessarily good. Dickens often spoke satirically of the "good old 
times." executor, etc. Distinguish these legal terms with the aid 
of a dictionary. 

16. St. Paul's. St. Paul's cathedral is one of the most famous 
buildings in London, to have him. To reach him, to get hold of 
him. ** came down." What is the pun here? 

17. know him. Why did the dogs leading the blind men fear 
Scrooge.? 

20. Bedlam. A word corrupted from Bethlehem, a hospital for 
the insane in London, called the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem. 

21. workhouses. See following note. Poor Law. The **01d 
Poor Laws" of 1796, which were very humane but which seem to 
have encouraged idleness, were reformed in 1834. Under the new 
laws, several parishes were grouped together and a Union Work- 
house was established for each group. Able-bodied men who failed 
to support themselves were sent to these workhouses. Dickens's 
disapproval of the laws was due largely to the stern manner of 
their enforcement at first. 

22. links. Torches of tow or pitch. 

23. Mansion House. The stately residence of the Lord Mayor 
of London. Saint Dunstan. Lived from 925 to 988. He was an 
English Benedictine monk, the chief minister of King Edred. 

197 



198 NOTES 

Legend says Satan once appeared to him in bodily form, and St. 
Dunstan caught him by the nose with red-hot pincers, carol. Early 
in the Middle Ages it became a popular custom to set up at Christ- 
mas, in private homes and in churches, a "crib" containing little 
clay figures of the Holy Family, and to dance in a circle around 
the crib singing joyful songs about the birth of Christ. This was 
called ** caroling" and the songs ** carols." Later the custom grew 
up of singing carols as a sort of Christmas serenade before people's 
homes, the singers often expecting some little gift. Why did Scrooge 
threaten to throw the ruler at the singer? God bless you. Protect 
you against evil supernatural influences. 

24. Cornhill. One of the principal streets of London, once the 
site of a corn market. Camden Town. As a small boy Dickens 
was put to board for a time with an old lady in Camden Town, a 
suburb of London. What is the significance of letting us know that 
the clerk lived in that suburb ? 

25. pigtail. See page 28 for a description of Marley, wearing 
his hair tied in a "pigtail" at the back. 

26. coach-and-six. A coach drawn by six horses. What charac- 
teristic of the stairway does Dickens wish to emphasize ? An Act of 
Parliament through which one "could drive a coach-and-six" is 
one so full of omissions, ambiguities, etc., that any shrewd person 
can escape its requirements, locomotive hearse. Hearse formerly 
meant a frame for holding candles above a corpse. Its present 
meaning is recent. Hence, Dickens distinguishes it from the old 
meaning by saying locomotive, or transportation, hearse. Dutch 
merchant. Dutch merchants traded and built homes in England 
as early as the fifteenth century. Do the pictures on the ancient 
tiles have anything to do with Scrooge's visions.'' 

27. Prophet's rod. See Exodus 7 : 8-13. 

28. bowels. The ancients supposed that pity and other emotions 
had their origin in the abdominal region of the body. See Colossians 
3 ' 12. 

31. Ward. The night watch. 

32. Wise Men. See Matthew 2:1-11. 

35. Stave Two. Why does the author begin a new stave at this 
point? repeater. A watch that will strike whenever a certain 
spring or lever is pressed. " First of Exchange." This means 
the original copy of a draft. The whole phrase quoted usually 
appears on a draft on London. United States' security. Prob- 



NOTES 199 

ably a scornful reference to the unstable condition of our national 
finances during the great panic of 1837, which was felt even till 1843, 
the year of the Christmas Carol. 

38. covered. To put on his cap. ** Cover thy head; nay, prithee, 
be covered." As You Like It, V, i, 19. 

41. Ali Baba. Read the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves 
in Arabian Nights^ Entertainments, a favorite book with Dickens in 
boyhood. Valentine, Orson. Characters in an ancient romance. 
Robin Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe was another of Dickens's favorite 
boyhood books. 

43. sweep. A curved roadway leading up to a building. 

44. Welsh wig. A worsted cap. organ of benevolence. The 
top of his head. 

46. " Sir Roger de Coverley." A dance named in honor of 
Addison's famous character. 

47. " cut." "To spring from the ground and, while in the air, to 
twiddle the feet, one in front of the other, with great rapidity." 
New English Dictionary, 

65. twelfth-cakes. Cakes prepared for a festival on Twelfth- 
night, the night of January 5. In one of the cakes is concealed a 
coin or other object, and the person who receives the slice con- 
taining this is king or queen of the festival. Giant. Whom does 
Dickens mean ? horn. The cornucopia, or horn of abundance, rep- 
resented in mythology as filled with fruits of the earth, and sym- 
bolizing prosperity. 

56. members. That is, the Christmases of recent years are the 
younger members of the whole family of Christmases since the birth 
of Christ, but they are elder brothers of the present Christmas. 

58. daws. Silly fellows who think themselves too sensible for 
the childish pleasures of Christmas. 

59. You seek to close these places. The statute of 1821 per- 
mitted persons to carry food to the bakers' shops to be cooked 
between nine and one o'clock on Sundays; but this privilege was 
later abolished. 

60. " bob." Slang for "shilling." 

66. five-and-sixpence. Five shillings and sixpence. 

67. kenned. Knew. A quaint old-fashioned word chosen pur- 
posely. 

72. glee or catch. A song for three or more voices without 
accompaniment is called a glee. A song for three or more voices in 



200 NOTES 

which the singers begin at different intervals, catch up the words 
of one another, and thus produce humorous effects is called a 
catch, resorting to the sexton's spade, etc. What does this mean ? 
forfeits. A game in which something must be forfeited by a player 
whenever he breaks a rule, and this forfeit must be redeemed later 
by some playful penalty. 

75. Twelfth-night party. See note on page 55. 

81. penthouse roof. A shed roof, with only one slope. 

85. here . . . this. That is, in the death chamber of a hard- 
hearted and selfish person, in contrast with that of a loved and 
revered person. 

95. Walk-er. This, or ** hookey walker," is an exclamation 
used in England to express surprise or disbelief in what has just 
been said. Joe Miller. A famous jest book was published in 1739 
under the pretended authorship of a noted comic actor, Joe Miller. 

99. strait- waistcoat. A strait-jacket, a garment of stout canvas, 
to be buckled around the body, including the arms, of dangerous 
lunatics. 

104. pattens. Wooden-soled shoes made to raise the foot above 
the mud. Royal George. This English man-of-war in 1782, while 
undergoing repairs, turned over and went down with Admiral 
Kempenfelt and eight hundred men. See Cowper's fine poem, 
The Loss of the Royal George. 

114. Gruff and Tackleton. See page 121. 

117. "Carriage paid.'* Equivalent to ^'postpaid" or ^'express 
prepaid. '* 

133. which experience, etc. What attitude toward social dis- 
tinctions does Dickens seem to approve here? 

145. dame schools. Schools taught by women. In England 
the word '*dame" is sometimes equivalent to "school mistress." 

146, magnifying . . . cats. What does the author mean.? 











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^ The modern character of the illustrative extracts can not 
fail to interest every boy and girl. Concise summaries are 
given followingthe treatment ofthe various forms of discourse, 
and toward the end ofthe book there is a very comprehensive 
and compact summary of grammatical principles. More than 
usual attention is devoted to the treatment of argument. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

CS.88> 



HALLECK'S NEW 
ENGLISH LITERATURE 

By RE7 £N POST HALLECK, M. A., LL. D. 

aiL of History of English Literature, and History 
of Au can Literature. 

$1.30 



THIS New English Literature preserves the qualities 
which have caused the author's former History of 
English Literature to be so widely used; namely, 
suggest! veness, clearness, organic unity, interest, and power 
to awaken thouf^' . and to stimulate the student to further 
reading. 

•fl Here are presented the new facts which have recently 
been brought to light, and the new points of view which 
have been adopted. More attention is paid to recent 
writers. The present critical point of view concerning 
authors, which has been brought about by the new social 
spirit, is reflected. Many new and important facts con- 
cerning the Elizabethan theater and the drama of Shakes- 
peare's time are incorporated. 

^ Other special features are the unusually detailed Sug- 
gested Readings that follow each chapter, suggestions and 
references for a literary trip to England, historical intro- 
ductions to the chapters, careful treatment of the modern 
drama, and a new and up-to-date bibliography. 
^ Over 200 pictures selected for their pedagogical value 
and their unusual character appear in their appropriate 
places in connection with the text. The frontispiece, in 
colors, shows the performance of an Elizabethan play in 
the Fortune Theater. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S.90) 



A HISTORY OF AMERICAN 
LITERATURE 

By REUBEN POST HALLECK, M.A., 

PrinciDal, Male High School, Louisville, Ky. 

^1.25 



A COMPANION volume to the author's History of 
English Literature. It describes the greatest achieve- 
ments in American literature from colonial times to 
the present, placing emphasis not only upon men, but also 
upon literary movements, the causes of which are thor- 
oughly investigated. Further, the relation of each period 
of American literature to the corresponding epoch of 
English literature has been carefully brought out — and 
each period is illuminated by a brief survey of its history. 
^ The seven chapters of the book treat in succession 
of Colonial Literature, The Emergence of a Nation 
(1754-1809), the New York Group, The New England 
Group, Southern Literature, Western Literature, and the 
Eastern Realists. To these are added a supplementary 
list of less important authors and their chief works, as well 
as A Glance Backward, which emphasizes in brief compass 
the most important truths taught by American literature. 
^ At the end of each chapter is a summary which helps 
to fix the period in mind by briefly reviewing the most sig- 
nificant achievements. This is followed by extensive his- 
torical and literary references for further study, by a very 
helpful list of suggested readings, and by questions and 
suggestions, designed to stimulate the student' s interest and 
enthusiasm, and to lead him to study and investigate fur- 
ther for himself the remarkable literary record of American 
aspiration and accomplishment. 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S.318) 



A HISTORY OF AMERICAN 
LITERATURE 

By REUBEN POST HALLECK, M.A., 
PrinciDaJ, Male High School, Louisville, Ky, 



A COMPANION volume to the author's History of 
English Literature. It describes the greatest achieve- 
ments in American literature from colonial times to 
the present, placing emphasis not only upon men, but also 
upon literary movements, the causes of v^hich are thor- 
oughly investigated. Further, the relation of each period 
of American literature to the corresponding epoch of 
English literature has been carefully brought out — and 
each period is illuminated by a brief survey of its history . 
^ The seven chapters of the book treat in succession 
of Colonial Literature, The Emergence of a Nation 
(175 4- 1809), the New York Group, The New England 
Group, Southern Literature, Western Literature, and the 
Eastern Realists. To these are added a supplementary 
Hst of less important authors and their chief works, as well 
as A Glance Backward, which emphasizes in brief compass 
the most important truths taught by American literature. 
^ At the end of each chapter is a summary which helps 
to ^x the period in mind by briefly reviewing the most sig- 
nificant achievements. This is followed by extensive his- 
torical and literary references for further study, by a very 
helpful list of suggested readings, and by questions and 
suggestions, designed to stimulate the student's interest and 
enthusiasm, and to lead him to study and investigate fur- 
ther for himself the remarkable literary record of American 
aspiration and accomplishment. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S.318) 



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Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
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A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

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(724)779-2111 



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